Getting back on topic
Starmer won't last next year. He is useless
As for Chavez
1. Hugo Chávez was democratically elected. Not once. Not twice. But
five times over the course of fourteen years.
2. Chávez won these elections by massive margins. He prevailed in the 1998 presidential election with 56% of the vote. He was reelected in 2000, netting 60% of votes cast. In 2004, Chávez won a recall referendum with 59%. In 2006 he was again victorious, receiving a whopping 63% of the vote. And in the 2012, while dying of cancer, he still triumphed, this time garnering 55%.
3. On the rare occasions when Chávez suffered a political defeat (e.g., the December 2007 referendum on constitutional changes), he accepted the loss immediately. It’s true that Chávez engaged in certain practices that are open to criticism, such as gerrymandering and using executive decrees to get around congressional opposition. But these practices are common in many actually-existing democracies, including the US, and hardly constitute evidence that Chávez was a dictator.
4. Chávez’s electoral success was not due to electoral fraud. The Venezuelan opposition (which supported a military coup against Chávez in 2002) and US mainstream media frequently level this charge, but there is no credible to support it. Jimmy Carter said, “Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored [at the Carter Center], I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
5. The reason Chávez was so successful politically is because he implemented some of the same sorts of policies Socialists support. After Chávez took office, the Venezuelan state more than spending on health and education. (Sure this was made possible by the high price of oil from 2003 to 2008, but it was also possible because of Chávez’s success in reasserting state control over the oil sector, which was quasi-privatized in the 1990s.)
6. The policies implemented under Chávez led to vast improvements in access to health care, education, housing, and pensions. Poverty in Venezuela was cut in half between 2003 and 2008, with extreme poverty falling by 72%.
7. Chávez also made progress on the issue a lot of Socialists care the most about: inequality. By 2012 Venezuela was the most equitable in Latin America.
8. While you haven’t declared that you want to build “twenty-first century socialism,” Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution bears at least some resemblance to the type of “political revolution” you claim to favor. In 1998, when Chávez was first elected, turnout was just 63%, one of the lowest percentages in Venezuela’s democratic history. In Chávez’s last election, it was 81% — the highest percentage since 1988, when voting in Venezuela was still mandatory. In December 2013, 59% of registered voters went to the ballot box for local elections — a higher turnout than every US presidential election since 1968.
There was also a significant in Venezuelans’ interest in politics during Chávez’s time in office. In the three years before Chávez took office, Venezuelans’ interest in politics was consistently below the Latin American average (by 7–8% each year). Since 2003, Venezuelans’ interest in politics has been consistently above the Latin American average. In 2013, the year Chávez died, the percentage of Venezuelans who expressed interest in politics (47%) was the highest in Latin America and far higher than the Latin American average (28%).
9. Under Chávez, Venezuela made significant, if contradictory, progress towards the goal of becoming a “participatory democracy.” This was done through the establishment of numerous types of participatory institutions: communal councils, health and water committees, communes, participatory budgeting, and more. These institutions are not perfect, but they have undoubtedly fosstered greater decision-making power for ordinary Venezuelans.
10. The left were and are active participants in a messy and imperfect but inspiring and profoundly important attempt to forge a radical transformation. Chávez engaged millions of people in a democratic process of far-reaching reform. Chavez's championing of the poor came at the expense of Venezuela's middle class, which he branded as "esqualidos", the weak ones.
The RW hated what Chavez did, they disrespected his achievements because he threatened the neo-liberal consensus, yes he went to far by nominating new members of the supreme court (oh Trump did that)
So why on earth would any leftist criticise his achievements?
If you can be bothered read a RW piece about Chavez and you will see the same tropes aimed at Corbyn. Antisemitism being one of them, you will obviously hear him be called the M word.....shock horror, not the M word.
BTW i cant find any evidence of Starmer criticising Chavez, perhaps he does a Socialist bone in his body or is that stupid he doesnt know where Venezuela is.
US-Led Economic War, Not Socialism, Is Tearing Venezuela Apart (mintpressnews.com) here read this.
