United Socialist Party of Venezuela to Negotiate Candidates with Patriotic Alliance

Caracas, June 16, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com) –

Vice President of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Alberto Muller Rojas, announced on Saturday the formation of a commission to resolve differences within the Patriotic Alliance – a coalition of political parties that support the Bolivarian revolution headed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – and to negotiate candidates for the upcoming state and local elections scheduled for November 23.“The most important thing is to look for a methodology in order to resolve differences and achieve an almost perfect alliance, understanding that each party wishes to maintain its identity” the PSUV vice president said.Tensions have surfaced within the Patriotic Alliance (which includes the PSUV, Homeland for All (PPT), the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), the Electoral Movement of the People (MEP), the United Party of Venezuela (UPV), the Youth Party (PJ) and a number of regional parties), in recent weeks as some of the smaller parties have complained that the PSUV is unwilling to negotiate candidates for the upcoming elections.On June 1 the PSUV held an unprecedented internal election process, in which some 2.5 million party members, totalling 15 percent of the electorate, went to the polls to select party candidates.However a week later, on June 8, Müller Rojas assured that the PSUV would be willing to negotiate the withdrawal of those candidates that did not obtain 50% plus one votes or at least 15% more votes than the next highest pre-candidate in the party’s internal election process.

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Venezuelan Steel Co. Contract Workers Incorporated, Company To Be a Socialist Enterprise

Mérida, June 13, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)

Contract workers from Venezuela’s recently nationalized SIDOR steel plant were declared permanent workers and incorporated into the United Steel Industry Workers Union (SUTISS) Tuesday, in accordance with the collective contract that SUTISS signed with the government in early May, following 16 months of embattled negotiations with the previous private management.

“We have placed one more stone in the construction of a world model of Socialism of the 21st Century,” President Hugo Chávez declared during the ceremony in the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. An initial group of 216 contract workers were incorporated into the collective contract Tuesday, out of a total of 1,248 who are on track to obtain permanent status in a gradual process laid out in clause 97 of the contract.

Chávez announced that the new SIDOR will become a “socialist” enterprise run by the government together with the workers. “This is an historic day, on which the working class continues converting itself into the vanguard of the Venezuelan people and the Bolivarian Revolution,” the president boasted.Chávez also called on the SIDOR workers, who are now seasoned revolutionary organizers, to help make the plant function like a “socialist worker school” for the rest of Venezuela. SUTISS General Secretary José “Acarigua” Rodríguez assured during the ceremony that the union will be fully committed to the government’s national development plans.

“We are profoundly convinced that we should join forces, the workers and the government, to move this industry forward,” Rodríguez remarked.However, the union leader was adamant about the need to “deepen the participation of the workers” in the overall management of the plant during its “process of transition” in which “the emancipation of the working class from savage neo-liberal capitalism and imperialism is underway.”

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VAMOS AUCKLAND FILM SCREENING