Comunes (Venezuela): ‘The Maduro government and right-wing opposition are two sides of the same coin’

[Translator’s note: A new organisation has been launched by various revolutionary trade union and community activists amid the fallout of Venezuela’s disputed July 28 presidential election. Named La Corriente de lxs Comunes, often shortened to Corriente Comunes or simply Comunes, the literal translation is The Current of the Common People. But the name is a play on words in several senses. Comunes can be a plural of common (común), as in common people, or refer to the commons. Corriente translates to current, which can refer to a stream or a political tendency. Moreover, the phrase “común y corriente” is used in a similar way to “common and everyday”, as in “common and everyday people”. In the translation of the article and political document below, the words comunes and corriente have in some places been left in Spanish to take note of this double meaning.]

Translated from the Spanish version published at Comunes.

A new left-wing political organisation was announced at a media conference at the Central University of Venezuela on December 9, with spokespeople for the group calling on the country to organise to confront the government’s repressive authoritarianism, neoliberal economic policies and attacks on working people’s rights. According to Comunes, the people are sick and tired of the government’s privileges and abuses, as well as its attacks on human rights enshrined in the constitution.

At the same time, they said the right-wing opposition only offers false promises while supporting economic sanctions and soliciting foreign intervention in Venezuelans’ affairs. According to Comunes, both the government and right-wing opposition represent the interests of elites and stand against the genuine interests of common and everyday (común y corriente) working people. They say Comunes seeks to restore democracy and respect for the human rights contained in the constitution, through people’s self-activity and by uniting struggles.

Community activist and Comunes spokesperson Thaís Rodriguez said: “We are constructing a strategy from below. We know the fundamental problems we face as a nation and what our key theoretical, practical and organisational challenges are.”

Comunes spokespeople called on people to regain hope and confidence. Trade union leader Eduardo Sánchez said: “We believe that the immediate task we face is to resist authoritarianism, defend democratic spaces, recuperate confidence in our own strength, take to the streets once again, and initiate and promote popular struggles for just wages, respect for human rights, for social justice, to restore popular sovereignty and defend the constitution.”

Sanchez added that the Venezuelan people have the right to dream and struggle for a better country, “a country that our children can return to. One in which our grandparents do not suffer on starvation pensions. One in which workers receive the wages they deserve for their labour. A country for the people, not for the corrupt or rich.”

Asked about the results of the July 28 presidential elections and who they recognised as the winner, human rights campaigner and Comunes spokesperson Antonio Plessmann said the government has neither published the results nor carried out the audits required by law, causing a great deal of doubt over the legitimacy of the process. He said the results announced [by the National Electoral Council] do not reflect what the people saw and felt on the street. Therefore, Comunes believes that while Nicolás Maduro will de facto be the next president of Venezuela, he will not be viewed as a legitimate president among the Venezuelan people.

Comunes political declaration, December 2024

Translated from the original in Spanish at Comunes.

These are difficult and uncertain times. By failing to publish the election results, the government has struck a blow against popular sovereignty. This only confirms what everyone knows: [Maduro’s] overwhelming defeat at the hands of a people fed up with [his government’s] privileges and abuses. Having lost the support of the people, he has no other option left but repression and lies as the police and para-police violence unleashed in the days after July 28 shows. This is power against the people.

The government’s authoritarianism goes hand-in-hand with its decision to hand Venezuela over to the interests of national and international capital. It no longer has the support of the people, but it does have the support of Fedecámaras [Venezuela’s big business federation], Chevron, the old and new bourgeoisie and numerous shady capitalists out to make a quick fortune in the country. The government needs to do away with democracy and silence protest and resistance in order to impose its ferocious neoliberal package. Amid this process, the social gains achieved under [former president Hugo] Chávez have disappeared.

For its part, the right-wing opposition peddles smoke and mirrors, offering magical solutions that will only once again lead to disenchantment and demobilisation. Meanwhile, they continue crying out for sanctions against the country — which have only served to benefit the government and opposition leaders, enrich the wealthy and, above all, impoverish the poor — and dreaming that foreign intervention will solve the problems that we alone as Venezuelans must resolve. The right is once again implementing a scorched earth policy: if it cannot govern, then there will be nothing to govern. Though it has managed to capitalise electorally on the desires of important sectors of the population for change, deep down it offers nothing more than continuing the current government’s anti-popular and starvation policies: privatisation, handing over sovereignty to private and foreign capital, destroying wages and social rights. It seeks to disguise itself as democratic, but its record shows that it only wants power so that those who traditionally ruled can govern again.

The political current we are launching dissociates itself from either of these two blocs, both of which are responsible — albeit to different degrees — for the tragedy we are living through. We refuse to participate in the [government’s] scam that seeks to use Chàvez’s name to override the people’s will and impose a package that makes the worst form of neoliberalism pale in comparison; nor the [opposition’s] scam that promises magical solutions while clamouring for sanctions and dreaming of invasions. We have nothing to do with either form of fascism.

We refuse to be accomplices to one or the other group that wants to traffic our country.

In the end, regardless of any nuances, they are twins who disregard the people and sell off the nation’s sovereignty. They are two sides of the same coin.

We do not campaign for the lesser evil because we believe people have the right to freedom, justice and equality that neither of these two poles can guarantee. Against the neoliberal consensus of both elites, our struggle is for equality and social justice.

Against the overriding of popular sovereignty by both sides, we propose democratic radicalism and a return to politics from below. Against the looting of the nation and its handover to foreign interests, we fight for national sovereignty and in defence of the common good.

This current is democratic, popular and patriotic. We are comunes because we are for common people doing politics and against both elites who have stripped them of any protagonism and used politics to enrich themselves. We are comunes because we fight in defence of the commons, which are fundamental for a dignified life, and against dispossession and privatisation. We are comunes because we defend common sense against lies and deceit. We are comunes because, ultimately, politics, to be just, is about building a common space that includes everyone — without oppressed or oppressors, without exploited or exploiters, without anyone left behind. We are not inventing anything new: we are the result of the struggles of many, of something that comes from within, of something that belongs to everyone. That is why we are corriente. That is why we are comunes. We are comunes y corriente.

Only through popular struggle, collective resistance and rebellion from below against the abuses and domination from above, will a good homeland emerge, free from authoritarianism, exploitation and dispossession.

Only the people can save the people.

We therefore reaffirm the right of everyone to dream and struggle for a different country in which young people are not killed by the police or have to migrate because the country closes off all paths to them. A country to which our children can return. A country where our grandparents do not have to suffer on starvation pensions. A country where workers get the wages they deserve for their labour. A country for the people, not the corrupt or rich.

We know that fear, hopelessness, bewilderment and frustration are rife. But we also know that hope is made by all of us, through our actions, and in defiance of those who sow discouragement. We need boldness and patience, firmness and perseverance.

We believe that the immediate tasks we face are: resisting authoritarianism; defending democratic spaces; regaining confidence in our own forces; taking to the streets again; initiating and building popular struggles (for just wages, for respect for human rights, for social justice, in defence of popular sovereignty and the constitution); bringing together democratic, revolutionary and popular forces; rebuilding a democratic culture in the face of the commodification of life; and setting in motion an alternative for our people.

Organise, fight, resist, invent.

Against the destruction of democracy, theft of the country’s wealth, exploitation and impoverishment, we call on everyone to organise the rebellion. Only struggle and the unity of all will allow us to regain hope.