00:00And on Sunday, May 25th, Venezuelans will go to the polls for the third time this year
00:05after having held two public consultations.
00:08On this occasion, they will elect their governors and their deputies to the national and regional assemblies.
00:14Our correspondent, Chala Fall, helps us understand the context of these elections.
00:23Three days after the last public consultation and less than a month before the next legislative and gubernatorial elections.
00:30Peace continues to reign in the streets of Caracas.
00:32In the 23 de Enero Parish, as in the other neighborhoods of the city,
00:37the campaign has started in an atmosphere of respect for democracy.
00:44We have in revolution a slogan that our revolution is peaceful
00:47and that each one of the processes that will advance in the consolidation of the revolution
00:52and of the people's power is chosen through the vote.
00:56Nothing imposed, everything consulted with the people.
01:00In the 25 years of the revolutionary process,
01:08Venezuelans have been called to vote no less than 32 times.
01:12More than a number, this phenomenon, incomparable with neighboring democracies,
01:18demonstrates the empowerment of the people and the formation of a political conscience.
01:22Commander Chavez educated us to participate.
01:28So the people define every day what they want to do, how they want to do it,
01:32either in an assembly of citizens or in open elections such as the elections of a communal council,
01:38of a commune, but also in elections such as the one we are going to have in the next few days.
01:42The efforts of the extreme right to discredit the electoral system, with wide repercussions in the international media,
01:57do not seem to have affected the people's confidence in the institutions.
02:04Historically, the Venezuelan people have trusted the National Electoral Council,
02:08of course, since the arrival of the Bolivarian Revolution and we have an automated, audited, and auditable electoral system.
02:14Then that matrix of opinion that the Venezuelan electoral system is fraudulent falls under its own weight
02:19because we have more than 20 elections in which the results have always been accepted by the Venezuelan people.
02:23According to lawyer and historian Douglas Kerales, this growing participation of the people in political decisions
02:36is a reflection of the Constitution voted in 1999 and the transformations generated by the arrival of Commander Chavez to power.
02:48Contrasting it with the bourgeois liberal democracy.
02:53A representative character that marked the era from 1958 to 1998.
03:10Really, the qualitative advance in terms of the development of the participation of the people
03:15to express themselves in the great national issues is abysmal.
03:19In the face of innumerous attempts to destabilize Venezuelan democracy,
03:30which also include the illegal economic blockade of the United States against the country,
03:34the electoral practice becomes an act of popular resistance.
03:38Through elections and political mobilization,
03:41national sovereignty is consolidated against any form of interference.
03:45Shada Fol, from Caracas, Venezuela, for Telesur.
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