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It's already quite hard to be Left in Venezuela given that much of what is debated strictly follows what Chávez' Government/Party puts forward. But something that makes it even harder to back, support, criticise and debate with peers and  compañeros within our Left Government, is the quantity of entirely apologetic stuff put forward and written by supporters within the country and beyond its borders.  Solidarity is a tricky thing. On this point, see the latest in the 'solidarity genre' by the likes of Federico Fuentes in the Australian  Green Left Weekly here .  To respond to this would involve articulating the logic and limits of solidarity. How does one do solidarity? Solidarity with whom? How does your solidarity 'over there' engage with our struggles over here...  The point is that so much that would have to be acknowledged and questioned, is simply too intricate to be voiced in the work of solidarity, due to the way in which we usually carry out th...

November 2008, Regional Elections Late last year Venezuelans once again turned up to vote for and against a series of potent symbols: ‘21st Century Socialism’, the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, and the most impressive of all current political tokens in Venezuela and possibly across Latin America, Hugo Chávez. The elections on 23 November 2008 weren’t presidential elections—these were held just over two years ago—but rather local and regional elections. And we are now once more preparing for a referendum to be held in mid February, a vote on a constitutional amendment that will decide whether Chavez can seek re-election once his current term ends in 2012.  At the outset of the three-month long campaign for state governors and local mayors—an election that would decide the fate of over 600 officials and their governed—Chavez had strategically done all he could to transform the gubernatorial and mayoral elections into a national plebiscite on himself, the revolution and his leadership. The end...