Venezuela continues to strengthen the project of self-government and participatory democracy, remaining a benchmark for social and popular movements seeking structural transformation in the region from a socialist and anti-imperialist perspective.
Minister Ángel Prado highlighted the importance of Latin American countries adopting participative models based on the Venezuelan experience, in which the people play an active role in budget execution and resource management.
On Sunday, August 25th, the Second National Consultation was held, a new stage in the general elections of communal projects in Venezuela, where each of the 4,550 Community Councils participated by choosing a project through consultation. In this sense, Prado emphasized the importance of the assembly as a space for the exchange of ideas and shared decision-making, where every citizen has the opportunity to express their opinion and be heard.
He also called for the youth of Latin America to have a more prominent role in the construction of their nations. "The Latin American people is a people that studies, that forms itself, and it cannot remain with its knowledge eternally conditioned to work for a private company or simply be a slave to bureaucracy," he reflected.
In his vision, territorial popular self-government is a key slogan to transform the reality of communities, where the people, through collectivization, can decide and manage their own resources.
"We are willing to share our experience with the peoples of Latin America," declared the Minister.
Finally, Ángel Prado expressed his desire to exchange experiences with other social movements in Latin America, such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution in Cuba and the Landless Workers' Movement in Brazil, highlighting the importance of learning from and mutually nourishing each other in the struggle for a better world.
"The constitutions of each country must allow for the participatory and protagonic politics of the people, and allow people to also participate in the execution of the budget," noted the Minister, emphasizing the need for a profound change in the way communities are governed.
The minister highlighted the collectivization of the means of production as an essential step towards true participatory democracy.
"Life is our slogan, and it is a practice that we do here in Venezuela. The Venezuelan right and the bourgeoisie are afraid that the people will adopt a model that legitimizes participatory politics."
To execute the projects, a very interesting process is used that puts the State in dialogue with the communes. First, the project is debated, then it is prioritized according to the needs of the communes, and then the resources arrive. For execution, the Work Committee corresponding to the project assumes responsibility, but the protagonism is of the people, in a collective effort because the work is voluntary and, finally, accounts are rendered that justify the investment.
Prado analyzes the report that President Nicolás Maduro made on August 26th, one day after the Consultation, and affirms: "It is very good that the President said that once the project culminates, the entire community that is already prepared for the next popular consultation, that is, it is a form of democracy that we are not trying out, that has existed in Venezuela for a long time but that this entire situation of economic war had not allowed to finance processes of consultation like these."
It is the Ministry of Labor that verifies the evaluation of the project. During the first consultation held in April, 4,400 projects were chosen, of which 85% are already completed.
"The socialist communes participated in the Second National Popular Consultation, convened by President Nicolás Maduro, who has said that in this new government we are going to implement new methods, new ways of doing politics: we are going to deepen and innovate in seeking methodologies to achieve changes and transformations so that the national budget can be executed with the organized communities."
For this National Popular Consultation process, the Electoral Communal Circuit was constituted, its function is to facilitate the implementation of the voting and to ensure that all projects and decisions to be consulted are representative of the needs and demands of the people living in those areas.
This process is framed within the government's strategy of transferring more power to the people, allowing decisions regarding the management of the national budget and the execution of projects to fall directly on organized communities.
"Great things, very positive for the popular field, are happening right now in Venezuela, there are thousands of organized communities. The people are making the decisions and the popular leadership has for years been organizing the struggle in its territory against vulnerability, the lack of life, and especially in this stage of harsh economic war against our country," affirmed Prado in an interview with ARG Medios.
"The Venezuelan right and the bourgeoisie are afraid that the people will adopt a model that legitimizes participatory politics. The imperialism and the bourgeoisie in Latin America are very afraid that this type of communal experience will start to be demanded in other countries, where absolutely, participatory politics is not proposed, but representation from the bourgeois state and from the superstructure," explains the minister about the possibility that the Venezuelan process will radiate to the countries of the region and the world.
"We had a first consultation in April of this year where a large number of projects were executed, it was done efficiently, very effectively and the resource that was promised to the communities arrived in its entirety. There has to be debate, collective work," said Prado.
According to Prado, "you cannot have a management where we have only one representative from the community. That person is only going to replicate what we see in the high government, that is, one person deciding."
"The youth has proposals, they must be heard. We must be heard."
