Participatory Democracy Central to Next Phase of Venezuelan Revolution, says Chavez

Caracas, January 23^rd 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – The current Venezuelan government is to pursue a policy of more socialism, social justice and revolutionary, participatory democracy if successful in winning this year’s 2012 presidential elections, said President Hugo Chavez on Sunday.

The president made reference to what would constitute the next phase of the Bolivarian revolution during his weekly television show Hello President.

“Some people want to go backwards…we will continue with more socialism, more democracy and more social justice,” he explained, contrasting the Venezuelan political opposition’s vision for the country with that of the revolutionary government.

In the second programme broadcast since he returned to the show following his cancer diagnosis last year, the leader of Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) explained that a newly elected PSUV government would continue to advance towards the goals outlined in the Simon Bolivar Plan for the Nation throughout the 2013-2019 period.

Originally implemented in 2007, the plan was designed to summarise the government’s strategic lines for advancing towards “21^st century socialism”. Some of the main focuses outlined in the project are; transforming the nation’s dominant values along humanist and socialist lines, creating an endogenous productive model and a participatory democratic system, implementing measures to increase social inclusion and reconfiguring the country’s geo-political relations.

Future government policy would be geared towards furthering these objectives but with a concentration on developing organised society and protagonistic democracy, said Chavez.

“We want to unleash popular creativity from below, participation and protagonism from the grassroot’s bases, so that they can bring forward their ideas,” said the Venezuelan mandate from the Miraflores palace.

With the initial six year period of the plan coming to an end, Chavez said it would be necessary to undertake a review of how much the government had been able to progress along these lines since 2007.

“It is a constant battle against capitalist values,” said the president, who added that replacing the country’s dominant ideals with socialist ones would be “fundamental” to future government policy.

“This is related to everything, socialist ethics, we’re not going to be carrying out the Knowledge and Work Mission in order to strengthen capitalist ethics, or capitalist values… When undertaking big projects or small projects, we always have to ask ourselves, where is the socialism in this project?” he said.

The president went on to state that the government will further define the main guidelines for the next stage of the revolution during a public event in February, when the PSUV is due to commence its electoral campaign. According to predictions from national opinion polls, the current government is set to win the October presidential elections by a wide margin standing on a socialist platform.