On July 30, the International Relations Office of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) sent its congratulations to President Nicolás Maduro and the courageous Venezuelan people on their clear electoral victory against the US-backed opposition led by Edmundo Gonzales last July 28. The letter was signed by Luis Jalandoni, member of the National Executive Committee of the NDFP.
The NDFP declared that President Maduro’s victory was a victory of the Venezuelan people and “a clear rejection of the US imperialist plan of restoring a neocolonial puppet state thru the reactionary opposition.”
President Maduro is a former bus driver who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez and continued his nationalist and democratic policies. Hugo Chavez was a Venezuelan military officer and politician. From 1999 until his death in 2013, he was the 62nd president of Venezuela.
Chávez invoked his role model Simón Bolívar and his commitment to a united South America leading to the establishment of the underground movement Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario 200 in the early 1980s. He later on founded the Movimiento Quinta República party and won the presidential elections in 1998. He was re-elected three times in a row in the 2000, 2006 and 2012 elections.
Chávez’s Bolivarian Revolution incorporated socialist and Marxist ideas and Venezuela’s key industries including iron ore, oil and gas. The Venezuelan government stressed import-substitution policies, using protective tariffs to limit imports of manufactured goods and subsidies to promote the growth of domestic manufacturing. They also implemented a comprehensive land reform program to correct the imbalance of land ownership. By the end of the 20th century, Venezuelan industries had diversified, and the country developed additional natural resources.
Meanwhile, the US planned several attempts to remove Chávez from power:
- A failed US backed coup d’étaton 11 April 2002 ousted Hugo Chávez for 47 hours before being restored to power. Chávez was aided in his return to power by popular support and mobilization against the coup by loyal ranks in the military.
- On 23 January 2019 Juan Guaidó declared himself the interim president of Venezuela. He was supported by the US and other western imperialist allies.
- Operation Gideon, an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Maduro in 2020 was organized by Jordan Goudreau, a former trooper of the US Army Special Forces.
Unable to restore its neocolonial control of Venezuela, the US and its allied western imperialists imposed crippling economic sanctions which generated a humanitarian crisis in the country. The dire difficulties experienced by the Venezuelan people today is being hyped by the western press and the US-funded reactionary opposition as proof that the Bolivarian government should therefore be replaced – a classic example of the victims being blamed by the perpetrators, according to the NDFP.
The NDFP statement concluded that the revolutionary Bolivarian government led by Maduro has the right to defend itself against US imperialism and its reactionary cohorts.
