00:00And as voting continues in Venezuela for the first national public consultation in 2025
00:05where neighbors choose the projects to be phoned through the state's public's budget,
00:10effectively giving more voice to the people's powers, our correspondent Belén de los Santos
00:16give us the updates, the remarks and will tell us about what happened this day.
00:21Hello Belén.
00:22Hello Ana, it's a pleasure to meet you again.
00:28So as you were saying, we are here in Caracas, still we have been touring the city and going
00:34through the different communes and communal circuits in this public consultation, the
00:38first one this year.
00:40And right now we are at the iconic 23 de Enero Parish in Caracas, specifically at the El
00:47Panal 2021 commune.
00:50We are here and it's actually of course just minutes past 6.30 p.m.
00:55The official closing hour for the voting centers at the public consultation was 6 p.m.
01:01But as is customary, the voting centers will not close until the last voters are away.
01:08And actually there is just inside this school here, we are outside of course to do this
01:13live transmit, but inside there's still a long line of voters.
01:18There's also people still coming in and this also was the case at the other centers that
01:23we were just at.
01:25And that is the situation.
01:27So many, many people are expecting the voting to continue for at least a few more minutes,
01:34maybe hours.
01:35They will extend it until everyone gets a chance to vote, to participate in this public
01:41consultation that, as you were saying, is a chance for the neighbors of these communes,
01:46of these communal circuits to come and choose and vote, decide on the projects that they
01:52have.
01:53Their assemblies have brought to the table the question on which projects will be prioritized
02:00in its funding.
02:01Of course, the goal is always to meet all the community's needs, but it's the people
02:06who are deciding which are their priorities.
02:10And to talk a little bit more about what is happening here in the 23 de enero parish,
02:16in the penal commune, we are joined again by Sira Pascual Marquina.
02:21She is a militant of the Alexis Vive patriotic force here in the commune.
02:25Hello, Sira, thank you for joining us.
02:28Thank you so much.
02:29It's great to be here.
02:30This is actually a beautiful day because it's 26 years after Comandante Chavez came to power.
02:36And I think that it's the best way to celebrate his living legacy, to come together and vote
02:42in this commune project, in this process to self-organize, to self-build a new world.
02:48So we are very happy to be here today.
02:50Exactly.
02:51And as you were saying, what an iconic date to also be at this moment that many are seeing
02:58as a way of really strengthening and starting this year, 2025, with a clear mandate to strengthen
03:05that popular power.
03:06So I wanted to tell you what was your experience throughout the day.
03:09You've been here for some hours now.
03:11What has the feeling been like here at the penal commune?
03:15So the day begins very early always on voting days.
03:19And since very early in the morning, the line has been long.
03:22It's been moving relatively fast.
03:25People have been very enthusiastic.
03:27There's a number of different projects.
03:29You know, the projects are postulado, they are proposed by the people in assemblies,
03:35in their different communal councils, and then it went to a larger assembly where six
03:39projects were defined collectively, democratically.
03:42And today, among those six projects, people will decide which is the project that is most
03:47needed according to their reflection.
03:49So this is a very profoundly democratic process, a process that actually brings all sorts of
03:54people together.
03:55The projects that are being voted here today go from solving the problems of people who
04:00have buildings, homes that have been damaged, to the rebuilding of a library in our commune,
04:08to solving issues with kind of like the spaces, the common spaces.
04:12So there's a diversity of initiatives, a diversity of projects, and they are all really, actually,
04:18they respond to what people assume or understand to be their projects, their problems.
04:24It is important to understand that actually it is not somebody from outside who says,
04:29you know, this community has this problem or that problem.
04:32It is the people, the commoners, who are deciding what are their urgent problems and how they
04:38will solve them.
04:39And that's really popular power in action.
04:42So Cida, we've been just touring different communes, different neighborhoods here in
04:46Caracas, and we're trying to explain really what this public consultation is, what's at
04:52its core.
04:53And one of the things that many of the commoners here have been telling us is that this is
04:59an opportunity, as you were saying, to think about the issues, the key problems that are
05:06affecting the communities and turning that into an opportunity of organization, into
05:12an opportunity to coming together and drawing up a plan, a possible solution, really taking
05:17direct action.
05:18And that is a key role and a key part of popular power.
05:22Also the idea of people feeling called on to participate just directly to solve those
05:31problems in those communities.
05:33So I wanted to tell you your vision with your long experience of organization.
05:38What is this public consultation really about?
05:40Well, you know, this is about the commune, about the people organizing.
05:45We live in a country under siege.
05:47The blockade is really cruel.
05:49The resources are limited.
05:51That is the truth.
05:52So what is the best way to solve the problems that people have to, as I was saying before,
05:57identify the problems that people have?
06:00But this is not just about solving specific problems.
06:03That's one thing that has to be done in our situation.
06:07But we also have to build new relations of power, new relations, new economic relations.
06:13So every time that people come to vote, but every time also that people go to an assembly,
06:18but also every time that people get together with their neighbors and they solve the problems
06:22that they have, they are building actually something new.
06:25You know, Chavez talked about participative and protagonic democracy.
06:29And this is the most, one of the most extraordinary expressions of this proposal that Chavez
06:36gives us in 1992, 1993 in the Blue Book.
06:42He talks about participative and protagonic democracy.
06:45And I think this is a very true expression of that, a very true expression of people's
06:50power actually realized in the territory.
06:54So we have to change the world and we have to begin changing the world from our communities,
06:59from our communes.
07:00And this is what we are seeing right now in 23 de Enero and really all around the country.
07:05Excellent, Sira.
07:06So I thank you so much for joining us here and from the South once again.
07:10Thank you very much.
07:11It's been a pleasure.
07:12And so Ana, as I was telling you, this is just a little bit of what is happening here
07:17in the streets of Caracas.
07:19So the sun is setting, but as we were saying before, the voting centers will not close
07:24until all the neighbors have expressed their wish, their desire on which projects they
07:30deem that should be prioritized on their communities.
07:33They've had assemblies to debate them, so they're eager to come here.
07:37So people continue to come into the school.
07:40That is the situation here.
07:41And as we were just saying with Sira, what is happening here today is on the one hand
07:46that neighbors are coming together to draw up solutions to specific concrete problems,
07:52and that is very important.
07:53But more than that, it's also the possibility of thinking about a new model of democracy,
07:59a model of democracy that needs and calls for direct action and participation, constant
08:05participation in the territories.
08:06And that is not just a liberal democracy where someone goes to vote once every four or five
08:13years to choose a representative, but the people are taking action themselves.
08:18It's an act of true government that is happening here in every commune and communal circuit
08:24here in Caracas and also all around Venezuela.
08:28So now I go back to you, and we'll be back with more information.
08:31Thank you, Valen, for all the information and the great explanations that you gave us.
08:41And also the guest, Sira, that was with us explaining the perfect way for people to understand
08:47the way that here in Venezuela are being done the things and how the people, the Venezuelan
08:55people, is deciding for their communes.
08:58Thank you very much, Valen.
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