Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, shown here speaking to the press the day after the Dec. 2 constitutional referendum, is winning praise around the world for his graceful acceptance of the disappointing election results, thus proving the vitality of democracy in Venezuela. Photo: Francesco Spotorno, Reuters

As a result, Venezuelans will not have a constitution that gives them a 36-hour work week, that gives informal sector workers social security, that recognizes the contributions of African and indigenous peoples to the building of Venezuelan identity, that eliminates discrimination in all forms. They also won't have a seven-year presidential term without term limits, definitions for the four classes of property, and other changes that - on paper - would move the country more rapidly toward what is being called "21st century socialism."

Unlike citizens in the United States, Venezuelans get to vote on constitutional amendments. In the U.S., two thirds of both houses of Congress must approve an amendment and then it must be approved by three quarters of the state legislatures. Voters never get a direct say.

Which country has the greater democracy? With 11 national votes in the past nine years since Hugo Chavez was first elected president in 1998, is it any wonder that Venezuelans follow only Uruguay among Latin Americans in their satisfaction with their democracy?

It is time for the U.S. government and the U.S. corporate media to acknowledge that Venezuela is a vibrant democracy and that Hugo Chavez is its elected president. He is not a dictator and he obviously does not have autocratic control of the system, or the amendments he supported would not have been voted down.

It is time for the U.S. government and the U.S. corporate media to acknowledge that freedom of speech and assembly are alive and well in Venezuela. The wealthy opposition to the "Bolivarian process" owns the great majority of print and electronic media and was completely free to attack the proposed amendments and Chavez himself, which it did daily and in language that we would never see outside of blogs in the United States.

It is time for the U.S. government and U.S. corporate media to acknowledge that Venezuela's electoral process is free and fair. Its electronic voting machines issue paper receipts which make fraud almost impossible. We only can wish that electronic voting in the U.S. were as reliable. A defeat by only 1.5 percent would have been converted to a victory by those in power in many countries. Mexico's long tradition of dirty elections easily comes to mind.

It is time for the U.S. government to stop interfering in Venezuela's democracy and time for the U.S. corporate media to stop aiding and abetting it. Reports are that the U.S. government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy, spent $8 million of U.S. taxpayers' money to influence the vote on the referendum.

That would be the equivalent of a foreign country spending $92.6 million on a national referendum - if we had such a democratic tool - in the U.S. Would we tolerate that?

The Venezuela Solidarity Network organized a delegation to Venezuela in October of 2006 to investigate U.S. government interference in that year's presidential election. The U.S. embassy official who met with us freely admitted that the U.S. was spending $26 million on Venezuela's presidential election. What would be the reaction in the U.S. if Venezuela spent the equivalent $301 million on our upcoming presidential election?

It is time for the U.S. government to close the Office of Transition Initiatives housed in the U.S. embassy in Caracas. Venezuela's transition to a real democracy that began with the rejection of the old political parties of the elites in 1998 is alive and well and doesn't need any so-called "democracy building" from the United States. Indeed, there's a lot we could learn about democracy from the Venezuelans.

The Venezuela Solidarity Network, www.vensolidarity.org, is composed of national and local grassroots organizations working to expose and oppose U.S. government and corporate intervention in Venezuela's sovereign affairs and to provide solidarity support to the Bolivarian process in Venezuela.

The Bay View thanks Roberto Vargas for forwarding this statement. Vargas is a consultant for social programs for CITGO, the Venezuelan-owned U.S.-based gasoline and heating oil distribution company with eight refineries and 14,000 gas stations throughout the United States that has been making discounted heating oil available to poor communities in this country.

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