Analysis | Over 5,000 Venezuelan communes submit more than 36,000 projects - video Dailymotion

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To provide an insight into the importance of Venezuela’s Fourth Public Consultation, we interview Ermelinda Malcotte, international analyst, as Venezuelans head to the polls on Sunday, November 23rd, to choose which communal projects will receive funding from the Bolivarian government. teleSUR  These and more stories now!

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00:00And to go deeper into this topic and the importance of this public consultation in Venezuela,

00:05let's now welcome international analyst Ermelinda Malkot.

00:08Welcome, Ermelinda. Thank you for joining us here in From the South.

00:13Hello. Thank you for inviting me.

00:21So, Ermelinda, while day after day,

00:24Western news outlets are trying to install the possibility of an imminent U.S. attack on Venezuelan soil.

00:32From Venezuela, we see these images, images of people heading to the polling stations,

00:36demonstrating in the streets, continuing their political life.

00:40What does this new public consultation mean in this world scenario?

00:46Well, first of all, it means that the Bolivarian revolution is going its way

00:51and the aggression of the United States doesn't stop the process of the people

00:57taking in their hand their own country and their own sovereignty.

01:02So, it doesn't stop.

01:05And people are still involved in the defense of their country

01:08and the construction of their country.

01:10So, it means that the people are still engaged and are not afraid.

01:14They are not staying home.

01:15And they want to go forward for what they have been constructing

01:18since several decades with the Bolivarian revolution.

01:26Now, we've seen the U.S. military deployment

01:30and most particularly the extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean

01:34have brought multiple criticisms upon the Trump administration

01:39and its unsettling the international organizations

01:42and even their European allies.

01:44What do you think that these actions from the United States

01:47are showing us about the current state of the world powers

01:51and their respect of international law?

01:55Well, we are seeing a very special phase of the U.S. imperialism,

02:02which is an expansive phase

02:04and a military expansive phase in its own, as they call it, garden.

02:11I mean, because the Monroe Doctrine is very aggressive for the moment

02:15and they have even recalled it, the Don Road Doctrine for Donald Trump.

02:20And so, it's a very aggressive phase of that.

02:23But it's also showing that, as we have been used to see Donald Trump

02:30going from one way to the other way and not knowing what to do.

02:35So, he's showing inconsistency in his aggression.

02:40He's sending ships and military ships and so on.

02:44And then he says, I'm having negotiations and discussions.

02:46You don't very know what is going on with him.

02:50But we are in a very aggressive phase of the U.S. imperialism,

02:54which is the signal also of the fact that it cannot survive as it is on the moment.

03:01It has to go to the next stage.

03:05And the next stage of the U.S. imperialism is always a violent one.

03:08But what we also see is that Venezuela is resisting

03:13and the United States cannot push through the resistance of Venezuela

03:17and of the Latin American countries because it's not only Venezuela.

03:21So, yes, it's a very strong dance.

03:23But the Monroe Doctrine is extremely aggressive for the moment

03:26and his expression of Donald Trump's vision of the United States.

03:31Now, precisely in this context that you are describing with this inconsistency

03:38and this aggressiveness on behalf of the imperialist power,

03:42we are seeing this new form of democracy

03:45or this attempt of strengthening participatory democracy.

03:50How would you describe what is happening today in Venezuela?

03:53How would you explain this to someone who does not understand, for example,

03:57what a public consultation is, what it means in terms of popular power?

04:04Well, it has to be stressed that, for example,

04:07when Venezuela still was in the American organization,

04:12they wanted to push into the status,

04:16the fact that democracy was not only representative democracy,

04:20but also participatory,

04:21and also the protagonist democracy, which characterizes Venezuela.

04:26But they never understood.

04:27The United States never understood.

04:28Canada never understood what it meant.

04:31So it means it's a basic thing.

04:33It means that the people take in their hands their country

04:37and will construct it from the local communities.

04:40The state is present.

04:41The state will help.

04:43The state has also projects.

04:44But you will find some kind of government on very each local level.

04:50So, for example, a few months ago, when it was the last consultation,

04:54the youth were proposing project and they were constructing project.

04:58So it's a very well-constructed project,

05:00but it also means that they have to follow up the project.

05:03So there is some kind of planification ministry

05:06in the little communes at the community level.

05:12So the people really manage their project.

05:15They will go from E to Z with their project.

05:19And they will learn how to planificate, how to govern it, etc.

05:23And the state doesn't have nothing to do to the local,

05:26nothing to say to the local project.

05:28Each community will say what is important for us,

05:32what needs money to develop it,

05:35and the state will provide it.

05:36So it is not the state that will decide for the people,

05:42but really the communities have the project in their hands.

05:47So it's very democratic,

05:48and it's also the base of the Bolivarian project.

05:52So the Bolivarian revolution,

05:54which aims to put the state at the service of the people,

05:57uses the communities as the way to go through

06:02all the administration to the people,

06:04and those people will develop it.

06:06So it's the way of constructing the Bolivarian project

06:11and for having the people really owning their country,

06:15not only on the economical level,

06:17not only on the administrative level,

06:18but if we are speaking in the moment of military aggression,

06:22it's also a sovereignty defense

06:25and also a way of organizing the people

06:27for defending their country.

06:32And so refreshing it is to see

06:35these forms of participative democracy

06:37precisely in the face of this aggressive imperialist policies.

06:42Thank you so much, Ermelinda,

06:43for joining us once again in From the South.

06:45Thank you very much for inviting me.

Analysis | Over 5,000 Venezuelan communes submit more than 36,000 projects

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