Cuba Can Learn from Chavez and Venezuela

Pedro Campos

HAVANA TIMES — President Hugo Chavez has again won the presidential elections in Venezuela. We of Cuba’s “Participative and Democratic Socialism (SPD) platform congratulate the Venezuelan people, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and especially Comrade Hugo Chavez for this victory.

In this triumph, the ideas of a new form of participative and democratic socialism are focused on the solution to the problems that affect the people.

The recognition by the opposition of Chavez’s triumph left gasping for air all those who aspired to create social chaos in which they hoped to destroy the Venezuelan revolutionary process.

The president’s call for dialogue and “coexistence,” as well as his recognition of the role of the opposition are new paradigmatic milestones of the new form of socialism being sought.

Popular enthusiasm around the elections in Venezuela, both by Chavez supporters and the opposition, shows that the democratic system of parties has a place in the future of what some call “socialism of the 21st century” and in today what’s being attempted in Venezuela.

For Cubans, Chavez’s victory is particularly important, given the ties we have with his people the and the large amount of economic exchanges based primarily on exchanges of medical and other types of services for Venezuelan oil.

Cubans mustn’t respond to the process that has just taken place in Venezuela only with our solidarity. We need to also draw from those experiences and use them to continue radicalizing our own relatively stagnant revolutionary process.

The Cuban Revolution began the second stage of the independence of “Our America”; but today it is our responsibility to learn the way independence is being best guaranteed by the Bolivarian peoples of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

These countries have democratic processes, referenda, freedom of the press and association, free access to social networking websites, respect for different ways of thinking, recognition of the role of peaceful and democratic opposition, the direct election of their presidents, new forms of participation, community powers, the development of social enterprises and cooperatives, and programs of direct assistance for the most needy.