The candidate Freddy Bernal in the streets of Catia. ( Photo: Seb ) Hugo Chavez is everywhere in the countryside and it irritates the opposition. If the president has suspended the Sunday program "Alo Presidente" for the election period, the fact not multiply unless the televised speech to defend "their" candidates. Posters on the United Socialist Party (PSUV) the message is clear: "The PSUV candidates are candidates of Chavez." Freddy Bernal is one of them. The former mayor of Libertador (the largest municipality of Caracas) is not decided. The former policeman is an emblematic figure of the "Chavismo". Since the beginning of the campaign, it increases foot traffic in the barrios, the poor neighborhoods of Caracas. Today, his career includes the popular district of Los Frailes de Catia, west of the capital. The man has a keen eye and hair graying. It is a red shirt, color dear to bolivars. Throughout his career, he shook hands, stopped at the doors of houses where we sometimes get calls, like this one that also serves as a small community store that provides food missions of government or in the medical center run by two female doctors Cuban (including work as a radio and a library). "With these elections, the backbone of the revolutionary process is at stake for the socialist project continues to develop as an alternative to capitalism, we need to approve a series of laws to create a legal and political structure," explains Does not stop.
"We are convinced that alternative to capitalism is the state municipal (centered on the communal councils, ed.) And it is based fundamentally on the organization, participation and inclusion of the majority ", says one who has served two terms as head of the Liberator. At first contacts the candidate to municipality Bernal still work, receives in any case the logistical support of his press team. Asked about opposition complaints about possible favoritism, he replied: "We are the majority. And the advantage we have built with our forces from below. We have built As you can see here, with the humble people of the barrios of Caracas. These people are members of municipal councils, committees of land, health committees, power houses, etc.., They are not civil servants, it is the leaders of our country and they are grassroots activists. " The new parliament will he have to sacrifice themselves to give way to the popular power, a kind of communal councils of National Assembly? "For now it is not expected. Political processes are not determined by decree, they are developing. We are convinced that the National Assembly and the municipal authority can work together. There is no contradiction because members are the spokesperson and the expression of communal power. "But Mr. Bernal believes that the mechanism of representation of the current National Assembly is obsolete:" The men and women in parliament will be the expression of the community ".
Betzaida Fernandez, a member of the City Council of Los Frailes, participates actively in the candidate's visit Freddy Bernal in his community. She is proud to show the progress made in organizing local and ensures the need to consolidate the revolution: "If we lose the House, we lose everything we have built over the last eleven years ".
Article published in the Swiss daily Le Courrier September 21, 2010
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