Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, during a ceremony, receiving the legislative agenda for the 2023-2024 term of the National Assembly, this Monday, January 9, 2023. Photo: Presidential Press.
This Monday, January 9, the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, said that Washington’s Trumpist strategy to defeat his country had failed. “It collided with the democratic operations of this republic,” Maduro said.
Maduro also noted that it will be likely be a long time before US representatives acknowledge their failure.
“It failed and someone has to pick up the broken glass in Washington,” Maduro said. “It seems that there are no volunteers with enough intelligence and courage to pick up the broken glass. They secretly try to act without showing their faces, without the purpose of amendment, without self-criticism… The US empire and its representatives in Venezuela do not have an iota of shame to make self-criticism—the purpose of amendment and rectification—and say: ‘we were wrong, we failed in Venezuela.'”
During an event marking the beginning of the National Assembly’s (AN) 2023-2024 term, Venezuela’s head of state recalled, in response to recent misrepresentation by Brian Nichols, US undersecretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, that Venezuela’s legislative powers rest with its National Assembly.
“If Brian Nichols wanted to know what, in Venezuela, is the constitutional power that exercises the legislative function and appoints the public powers, which reviews and approves the nation’s budget, and which guarantees the investments and budget of the state, the legislative power that approves laws for the people would have to go to the Federal Legislative Palace, the seat of the National Assembly,” Maduro said, a reference to the US’s continuing recognition of the legitimacy of an expired National Assembly, controlled by the Venezuelan far-right, whose term ended in 2021.
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President Maduro derided Nichols for his apparent lack of knowledge about Venezuela’s legislative process. Despite this apparent shortcoming, Nichols continues to issue statements about Venezuela through his social media accounts at a frantic pace.
President Maduro reiterated that if the US wants to interact with the institution that legislates in Venezuela, it must communicate with Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly. “The rest is Narnia,” commented President Maduro. “The rest is a farce; the rest is a failure, the simple failure, of an improvised policy full of desires for revenge and other ill-gotten, ill-conceived interests that cause shame.”
The Venezuelan president said that those who requested the sanctions, those who still maintain the false institutions to steal state resources abroad, “do not come to preach on behalf of something that does not belong to them: the rights of our people.”
President Maduro noted that, despite the US narrative attempting destabilize the country’s institutions, the Venezuelan people are very well aware that the AN they elected is the one that passes laws and makes national decisions, not the defunct parallel AN recognized by the US and its vassal states.
President Maduro also reported that in the coming days he will attend the Federal Legislative Palace to present his annual address for 2022. “I have coordinated with the president of the National Assembly to go to the Federal Legislative Palace to render a constitutional account of the balance of the year 2022,” President Maduro said. “There, I will be able to demonstrate the landscape of economic recovery and of the weaknesses that still exist.”
"He coordinado con el Presidente de la Asamblea Nacional acudir al Palacio Federal Legislativo para rendir cuenta constitucional del balance del año 2022. Allí podré mostrar el panorama de la recuperación económica, de las debilidades que aún hay", detalló el Pdte. @NicolasMaduro pic.twitter.com/mEiKgfBBGp
— Prensa Presidencial (@PresidencialVen) January 9, 2023
Record growth Venezuelan economy
President Maduro highlighted how the Venezuelan economy showed “record growth in Latin America and the Caribbean,” and how Venezuela has made great strides in escaping, for the first time in over a century, its petroleum-based economy. Nevertheless, noted Maduro, victory cannot yet be claimed “because conditions are very difficult.”
“There is an expansion of trade, of internal consumption, of the internal market… of economic activity, and a greater generation of employment,” President Maduro said. “Unemployment has dropped substantially this year.”
#EnVivo 📹 | Venezuela experimentó un crecimiento récord en América Latina y El Caribe
"No cantemos victoria, cantemos cantos de resistencia y de esfuerzo colectivo. Todavía las condiciones para asfixiar la economía de nuestro país son graves", enfatizó @NicolasMaduro pic.twitter.com/g5oQwN7hJ1
— Prensa Presidencial (@PresidencialVen) January 9, 2023
The president explained that the people of Venezuela “have to know the truth,” that conditions continue to be adverse as a result of the continuous attack on democracy and Venezuelan society that is part of the right-wing assault underway throughout the continent, a concerted effort to halt the new progressive and revolutionary wave in the region.
“We are constantly struggling to acquire funds through various channels … to invest in public education … for healthcare missions … guarantee vaccination and sanitary operations,” President Maduro said.
He highlighted the struggle to maintain the pace of building half a million homes by the end of 2023 and to ensure that the Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP) guarantee affordable food for the Venezuelan people.
President Maduro assured that “no one can be deceived about the effort” that the Venezuelan government makes daily. The country is far from a definitive victory over the blockade and persecution that is imposed by the US and its allies on the Venezuelan people.
The statements by President Maduro come on the heels of attempts by social movements and political parties, mostly opposition, to capitalize on the discontent felt among many Venezuelans due to the strong deterioration of salaries, a consequence of the devaluation of the bolivar in relation to the US dollar.
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A strike was called this Monday by multiple unions, including teachers unions, supported by a few of Venezuela’s political parties. The strike itself was not very successful in terms of affecting the daily operations of Venezuela, but there were significant street mobilizations in a few Venezuelan cities. In Guárico, more than 300 teachers gathered, reported El Pitazo. In Caracas, hundreds of strikers took to the streets, demanding higher salaries. There were no incidents of violence reported.
The president highlighted the political stability and peace achieved over the last year, and recalled how the people were told the truth about the adversities they would face before the arrival of the pandemic, and the role that the election of a new AN would have in the reconstruction of the foundations of the state.
President Maduro requested the council of vice presidents to create a new mechanism for the parliament to contribute to the development of the necessary policies to adapt the laws to the needs of the new society, “the society of equals… of vivir viviendo,” that the contemporary situation demands.
Legislative agenda 2023-2024
During the event, President Maduro issued a call to the National Assembly, suggesting that a powerful permanent consultation network be built where the people can register their opinions, alerts, criticisms, and ideas.
The 2023-2024 Legislative Plan includes various areas of action:
• Economic: Digital Economy Law, Public Procurement Law, Law for the Coordination and Harmonization of Tax Powers, and Reform of the Organic Law of the Communal Economic System.
• Public services.
• Popular Power: Reforms of the Organic Law of Popular Power, Organic Law of Communes, and Law of Communal Councils.
• Judicial Revolution: Law on the Justice System, Law on the Inspectorate of Courts, and Law on the National School of the Magistracy.
• For human development: Special Law for workers with disabilities, Law for agricultural workers, Law for the equality of women, Law for people with autism spectrum disorder, Law of Participation in the educational system.
Support for Brazil
The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, vigorously repudiated the expressions of fascism that occurred in Brazil this Sunday.
President Maduro sent the president of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, and the Brazilian people his and the Venezuelan people’s unrestrained support in the face of the attacks of the extreme right, which “does not accept the legitimate power of the people’s votes, that does not accept the sovereignty of countries.”
(Últimas Noticias) with Orinoco Tribune content
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
