Our correspondent Belen de los Santos updates us on the 1st Popular Consultation of the year in Venezuela, and interviews Cira Pascual Marquina, Militant of the 'Alexis Vive' Patriotic Force, El Panal 2021 Commune. teleSUR
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00:00And as voting continues in Venezuela for the first national public consultation in 2025
00:05where neighbors choose the projects to be phoned through the state's public's budget,
00:10effectively giving more voice to the people's powers, our correspondent Belén de los Santos
00:16give us the updates, the remarks and will tell us about what happened this day.
00:21Hello Belén.
00:22Hello Ana, it's a pleasure to meet you again.
00:28So as you were saying, we are here in Caracas, still we have been touring the city and going
00:34through the different communes and communal circuits in this public consultation, the
00:38first one this year.
00:40And right now we are at the iconic 23 de Enero Parish in Caracas, specifically at the El
00:47Panal 2021 commune.
00:50We are here and it's actually of course just minutes past 6.30 p.m.
00:55The official closing hour for the voting centers at the public consultation was 6 p.m.
01:01But as is customary, the voting centers will not close until the last voters are away.
01:08And actually there is just inside this school here, we are outside of course to do this
01:13live transmit, but inside there's still a long line of voters.
01:18There's also people still coming in and this also was the case at the other centers that
01:23we were just at.
01:25And that is the situation.
01:27So many, many people are expecting the voting to continue for at least a few more minutes,
01:34maybe hours.
01:35They will extend it until everyone gets a chance to vote, to participate in this public
01:41consultation that, as you were saying, is a chance for the neighbors of these communes,
01:46of these communal circuits to come and choose and vote, decide on the projects that they
01:52have.
01:53Their assemblies have brought to the table the question on which projects will be prioritized
02:00in its funding.
02:01Of course, the goal is always to meet all the community's needs, but it's the people
02:06who are deciding which are their priorities.
02:10And to talk a little bit more about what is happening here in the 23 de enero parish,
02:16in the penal commune, we are joined again by Sira Pascual Marquina.
02:21She is a militant of the Alexis Vive patriotic force here in the commune.
02:25Hello, Sira, thank you for joining us.
02:28Thank you so much.
02:29It's great to be here.
02:30This is actually a beautiful day because it's 26 years after Comandante Chavez came to power.
02:36And I think that it's the best way to celebrate his living legacy, to come together and vote
02:42in this commune project, in this process to self-organize, to self-build a new world.
02:48So we are very happy to be here today.
02:50Exactly.
02:51And as you were saying, what an iconic date to also be at this moment that many are seeing
02:58as a way of really strengthening and starting this year, 2025, with a clear mandate to strengthen
03:05that popular power.
03:06So I wanted to tell you what was your experience throughout the day.
03:09You've been here for some hours now.
03:11What has the feeling been like here at the penal commune?
03:15So the day begins very early always on voting days.
03:19And since very early in the morning, the line has been long.
03:22It's been moving relatively fast.
03:25People have been very enthusiastic.
03:27There's a number of different projects.
03:29You know, the projects are postulado, they are proposed by the people in assemblies,
03:35in their different communal councils, and then it went to a larger assembly where six
03:39projects were defined collectively, democratically.
03:42And today, among those six projects, people will decide which is the project that is most
03:47needed according to their reflection.
03:49So this is a very profoundly democratic process, a process that actually brings all sorts of
03:54people together.
03:55The projects that are being voted here today go from solving the problems of people who
04:00have buildings, homes that have been damaged, to the rebuilding of a library in our commune,
04:08to solving issues with kind of like the spaces, the common spaces.
04:12So there's a diversity of initiatives, a diversity of projects, and they are all really, actually,
04:18they respond to what people assume or understand to be their projects, their problems.
04:24It is important to understand that actually it is not somebody from outside who says,
04:29you know, this community has this problem or that problem.
04:32It is the people, the commoners, who are deciding what are their urgent problems and how they
04:38will solve them.
04:39And that's really popular power in action.
04:42So Cida, we've been just touring different communes, different neighborhoods here in
04:46Caracas, and we're trying to explain really what this public consultation is, what's at
04:52its core.
04:53And one of the things that many of the commoners here have been telling us is that this is
04:59an opportunity, as you were saying, to think about the issues, the key problems that are
05:06affecting the communities and turning that into an opportunity of organization, into
05:12an opportunity to coming together and drawing up a plan, a possible solution, really taking
05:17direct action.
05:18And that is a key role and a key part of popular power.
05:22Also the idea of people feeling called on to participate just directly to solve those
05:31problems in those communities.
05:33So I wanted to tell you your vision with your long experience of organization.
05:38What is this public consultation really about?
05:40Well, you know, this is about the commune, about the people organizing.
05:45We live in a country under siege.
05:47The blockade is really cruel.
05:49The resources are limited.
05:51That is the truth.
05:52So what is the best way to solve the problems that people have to, as I was saying before,
05:57identify the problems that people have?
06:00But this is not just about solving specific problems.
06:03That's one thing that has to be done in our situation.
06:07But we also have to build new relations of power, new relations, new economic relations.
06:13So every time that people come to vote, but every time also that people go to an assembly,
06:18but also every time that people get together with their neighbors and they solve the problems
06:22that they have, they are building actually something new.
06:25You know, Chavez talked about participative and protagonic democracy.
06:29And this is the most, one of the most extraordinary expressions of this proposal that Chavez
06:36gives us in 1992, 1993 in the Blue Book.
06:42He talks about participative and protagonic democracy.
06:45And I think this is a very true expression of that, a very true expression of people's
06:50power actually realized in the territory.
06:54So we have to change the world and we have to begin changing the world from our communities,
06:59from our communes.
07:00And this is what we are seeing right now in 23 de Enero and really all around the country.
07:05Excellent, Sira.
07:06So I thank you so much for joining us here and from the South once again.
07:10Thank you very much.
07:11It's been a pleasure.
07:12And so Ana, as I was telling you, this is just a little bit of what is happening here
07:17in the streets of Caracas.
07:19So the sun is setting, but as we were saying before, the voting centers will not close
07:24until all the neighbors have expressed their wish, their desire on which projects they
07:30deem that should be prioritized on their communities.
07:33They've had assemblies to debate them, so they're eager to come here.
07:37So people continue to come into the school.
07:40That is the situation here.
07:41And as we were just saying with Sira, what is happening here today is on the one hand
07:46that neighbors are coming together to draw up solutions to specific concrete problems,
07:52and that is very important.
07:53But more than that, it's also the possibility of thinking about a new model of democracy,
07:59a model of democracy that needs and calls for direct action and participation, constant
08:05participation in the territories.
08:06And that is not just a liberal democracy where someone goes to vote once every four or five
08:13years to choose a representative, but the people are taking action themselves.
08:18It's an act of true government that is happening here in every commune and communal circuit
08:24here in Caracas and also all around Venezuela.
08:28So now I go back to you, and we'll be back with more information.
08:31Thank you, Valen, for all the information and the great explanations that you gave us.
08:41And also the guest, Sira, that was with us explaining the perfect way for people to understand
08:47the way that here in Venezuela are being done the things and how the people, the Venezuelan
08:55people, is deciding for their communes.
08:58Thank you very much, Valen.