real utopias

The last few decades have seen the question of the environment pushed to the forefront on a world scale. The ‘green parties’ in Europe and donor-funded NGOs in the developing world have championed this ‘agenda’ predominantly.

The resounding victory of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (USPV) in last Sunday’s local elections yet again demonstrated the astonishing resilience of the workers and youth of Venezuela and their support for the ongoing revolutionary process. It also shows the pent up revolutionary zeal of the masses that are still fighting against all the odds so that the revolutionary movement keeps going strong since Chavez started the process in 2002. The socialists won more than 54 percent of the vote against 43 percent for the right wing opposition, and won office in 196 municipalities against the opposition’s 53. The advantage of the Bolivarian revolution over the opposition significantly increased, from only 1.49 percentage points in the April 14 presidential election to 6.52 now. As for the number of mayors, with most results already in, the PSUV and allies elected 234, for the opposition’s 67. The turnout was 58.92 percent, much higher than in most European countries for equivalent elections.