Venezuela

Roger Harris argues that the purpose of US sanctions against Venezuela is to turn the country and its defiant socialist project into a cautionary tale. Roger D. Harris Washington has threatened to reimpose oil sanctions against Venezuela. (Photo: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg) US sanctions on Venezuela’s gold sales and its threat to do the same with oil. The oil sanctions especially, if reinstated, would precipitate higher gas prices and further debilitate the Venezuelan economy, forcing more people to leave the country out of economic necessity. The Venezuelan government, for its part, has not been contrite. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez protested “the wrong step of intensifying economic aggression against Venezuela.” She warned that if Washington takes the thre...

A deep dive into the complexities and uncertainties surrounding Venezuela's July 28 presidential elections. Clodovaldo Hernández Nicolás Maduro is often represented by Chavistas as a colorful rooster. (Venezuelanalysis) There are several unknowns around the upcoming Venezuelan presidential elections on July 28, and everything seems to indicate that they will only be resolved on that day, when more than 21 million voters will be able to cast their ballots and decide whether to give President Nicolás Maduro six more years in office or opt for one of nine other presidential candidates in the race. One of the key questions is how much of its electoral strength does Chavismo retain after 25 years in power, 11 of them under Maduro’s leadership. During his presidency, Maduro has ...

In her latest column, VA's Andreína Chávez explores the contrast between grassroots feminism and women's demands versus government-led initiatives. Andreína Chávez Alava The latest edition of "The Subversive Truth" tackles the need to prioritize Venezuelan working-class women in order to propel forward the socialist project. Growing up, I used to love listening to my mom recalling the day I was born because it resembled an absurd 90s comedy, with weird plot twists and everything. Years later, I realized that despite the funny elements, this was actually another story of how working-class women survive and how their demands go forever unheard. If you bear with me for just a little bit as I tell my mom’s story, you’ll find out why women’s rights being reduced to an afterthou...

Despite warnings from disqualified candidate María Corina Machado ("There will be no elections without me!"), Chavismo and dozens of opposition parties are debating an electoral calendar. Clodovaldo Hernández Clodovaldo Hernández breaks down the opposition choices for the upcoming election. (Venezuelanalysis) Following a Supreme Court ruling barring María Corina Machado from running for the 2024 presidential election, the far-right leader defiantly declared, “There will be no elections without me!” This statement appeared to signal a potential call to arms, particularly as US officials supported her stance by warning that a failure to allow Machado’s candidacy could lead to the reinstatement of unilateral coercive measures (commonly known as sanctions) in April. To undersc...

The national vote held on December 3 upheld sovereignty in two ways: exercising control over the territory and emphasizing the weight of the popular vote. Clodovaldo Hernández Clodovaldo Hernández is a Venezuelanalysis columnist. (Venezuelanalysis) Sovereignty, a concept that neoliberal modernity has sought to dilute and pasteurize, has come doubly to the forefront as a result of the referendum held in Venezuela on December 3 regarding the country’s dispute with Guyana over the 159,500 square kilometer territory west of the Essequibo River. Caracas’ move was an unusual turn in this type of border dispute. Previous cases involved consultations with the concerned peoples but had been preceded by diplomatic agreements between the parties. In this case, the acti...

Sociologist Reinaldo Iturriza delves into the phenomenon of “disaffiliation” in present-day Venezuela.  Reinaldo Iturriza López According to Iturriza, disaffiliation is one of the most serious problems facing Venezuelan society today. (Venezuelanalysis) If we were to accept the premise that it is no longer possible to speak of a politically polarized Venezuela because the political field has ceased to be the scene of a conflict between two antagonistic projects in Venezuela, the most logical conclusion would be to formulate some hypotheses about the course of the poles in contention, specifically about their social support bases and their leadership figures. This is relevant because, in the realm of anti-Chavista opinion-makers, the analysis seems to go as follows: af...

VA columnist Reinaldo Iturriza revisits the insights of Alí Rodríguez Araque to put Venezuela's political dilemmas in perspective. Reinaldo Iturriza López The predominance of oil in the Venezuelan economy has led to several crossroads over time. (Venezuelanalysis) The lack of knowledge about our history, the absence of even the slightest analytical rigor, and perhaps more dangerously, a certain tendency to reproduce a common sense that prevails in these times of capitalist realism, can lead us to incorrectly assess the years of the Hugo Chávez presidency as a period in which everything was possible thanks to the oil revenue. From the aforementioned, it is often deduced that, in the absence of sufficient oil revenue—as a result of falling oil prices, the impact of sanc...