“Maduro has been left without a people”: Why working-class neighborhoods are leading protests against fraud in Venezuela

Before mobilization, the National Electoral Council (CNE) had officially proclaimed Ripe winner of the elections on Sunday, July 28 with 51.2% of the votes, a result that is rejected by the majority oppositionwho with 73% of the minutes in his possession assures that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won with a difference of more than 3 million votes in his favor.

LOOK: “A fraud like never before”: How Maduro won the Venezuelan elections against all odds

“The people are upset. They have to go one way or another.”Maria Arraez, a 27-year-old stylist who took to the streets in Petare with a large flag of Venezuela on the back.

“I don’t want a bonus, I don’t want CLAP, what I want is for Nicolás to leave”chanted the protesters. The Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP) were created in early 2016 by the regime of Ripe as a mechanism for the distribution of subsidized food due to the serious economic crisis in the country.

The mobilization that emerged from Petare advanced until Chacaowhere the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) repressed it with tear gas, reported the AFP agency.

After the uprising in Petaremobilizations were reported in other popular neighborhoods both in Caracas as in the rest of the country.

In the coastal city of La Guairanext to Caracas, dozens of young people They tore down a bronze statue of Hugo Chavez almost 2 meters high that was placed in a town square in 2017, four years after the death of the ruler, reported the AP agency. Then they dragged her down the street while they beat her with sticksThey wrapped her in a Venezuelan flag and set her on fire.

There were also demonstrations in Catiaa poor neighborhood of Caracas considered as traditionally Chavista. The same thing happened Valleyin the southwest.

Ripe rejected the protests and said they were designed to destabilize his government and perpetrate a coup against him.

“This is not the first time we have faced what we are facing today. An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela, once again. Of a fascist and counterrevolutionary character”, said Ripe.

Until Tuesday, the NGO Criminal Forum He reported that Six people died during the protestsincluding two minors, in the states of Aragua, Táchira, Yaracuy and Zulia. In addition, 132 verified arrests were recorded.

The organization Doctors for Health said 84 people were injured during the protests, which were repressed in some cases with tear gas and pellets.

On Tuesday morning, Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saabreported the arrest of 749 people during the protests, and warned that the number could grow in the coming hours. The Prosecutor’s Office also said that a soldier died “from gunfire by protesters” in the state Aragua.

“There are 749 of these criminals arrested”Saab said in a statement to the press in which he specified that the Public Ministry is considering charging them with “resisting authority and, in the most serious cases, terrorism.”

Why are neighborhoods protesting against Maduro now?

In the last 25 years, Venezuela’s neighborhoods have been considered as bastions of chavismo. When Hugo Chavez was alive, in the slums citizens used to justify their support for the regime with examples like this: “Do you see that post on the hill? Chavez put that up there. Cuban doctors treat them and there is free medicine. It didn’t exist when the right was in power. Before, if someone had a colic in the middle of the night, they had two alternatives: stay home and endure the pain and risk dying, or go down the hill and risk being attacked by a criminal on the way and killed.” But that has changed in recent years.

Oscar PerezVenezuelan politician exiled in PeruIt is PetareHe was born and raised in the neighborhood and was an elected deputy for 15 years.

In dialogue with TradePerez explains the reasons why Petare and other poor neighborhoods are beginning to turn their backs on Ripe.

“There are two reasons for this to happen: the economic crisis is very big, People are starving, especially in the popular sectors. Petare It is the largest neighborhood in Latin America, a sort of San Juan de Lurigancho, with the same problems, the same demographics, but five times larger than SJL. The other reason is the fervent desire that people have to reunite with their relatives who are outside the country. These 8 million Venezuelan migrants became the great mobilizer for people to go out and vote massively on July 28th.he points out.

“I’m from PetareI know the neighborhood very well, He was an icon of the Bolivarian Revolution. Now people go out because they want change. Before, the poor went out to demonstrate against the opposition, to confront them. But today Nicolás Maduro, his revolution, was left without people. It is a revolution without people”says Perez.

“Those who are protesting now alongside the democratic sectors are people who until recently wore their red shirts to defend the Bolivarian Revolution”insists Perez.

The Venezuelan political scientist Jose Vicente Carrasquero Maintains that Maduro was unable to retain the support of the neighborhoods due to his poor management.

“You can’t have support if people are starving, if they are without electricity for four to five hours a day, without water a few times a week. You are supposed to be in power to manage, but if you don’t manage well, people will want to fire you.”“, he says to Trade.

“The people of these neighborhoods somehow They have been distancing themselves from Chavismo, who at first managed to conquer them through gifts, presentsof favors, but these did not end up being mechanisms for having a better quality of life; on the contrary, people have been losing more and more of their purchasing power, they have more and more problems for their subsistence, the hospitals do not work, neither do the schools or the universities, and in a country where things do not work, people do not want to live.Explain Holm oak.

The social control exercised by groups

For many years, another of the explanations that were put forward to answer the question of Why the neighborhoods did not protest against the regime It had to do with the social control exerted by the collectiveswho are heavily armed paramilitaries loyal to the regime and have a presence in many poor areas of the country. On Monday, a group of them was seen repressing protesters in the center of Caracas.In a widely circulated video, they were seen firing their firearms alongside police forces, with total impunity.

“The groups are criminals, they are armed gangs, they are not normal people, they have a license to kill, they kill and they do not go to jail.. Before, they would go and scare the middle class people, but now they are trying to kill people who are like them, who ultimately don’t have much to lose and who also know them,” indicates Holm oak.

The political scientist also referred to the videos that circulated on Monday, where Armed criminals threatened to take action against the groups if they repressed the demonstrations in the neighborhoods. “This shows that Venezuela is a country without law”he says.

Perez indicates that the groups are becoming fewer in number. “These paramilitaries, as long as they do not receive money, as long as they do not receive benefits, will not come out to accompany Maduro in this process of persecution against people who protest peacefully.”

Will the regime’s police and military forces enter the neighborhoods to crush the protests? “The only thing Maduro has to keep in power is repression, but once it cracks, he will fall”says Carrasquero.

“They are going to try to crush the protests in the neighborhoods, but The problem is that going into the neighborhoods is like going into the Brazilian favelas.In these places people are armed, they are hiding, there are alleys where security officers can easily get trapped,” Carrasquero adds.

On the demolition of Chavez statuesCarrasquero says that it is a reaction of the people to the aggressive and contemptuous treatment they receive from the regime, which is amplified through the state channel. Venezuelan Televisionwhere well-known political figures from the ruling party have programs where they constantly insult people, “who will no longer allow themselves to be subdued.”

“They have been torn down statues of Hugo Chavezwho is the most iconic figure of Chavismo, of the Bolivarian Revolution, and No one has come out to oppose thisThose who are tearing them down are people who at some point supported that police proposal in Venezuela”Pérez points out.