Caracas, July 28, 2022 (Press MinComunas) – On October 20, 2012, less than five months of his physical departure, Commander Hugo Chavez warned his Cabinet to promote the “Coup de Timon” about the “serious” mistake of assuming that the Commune is a matter of a single Ministry. During the televised Council of Ministers, he entrusted his successor, Nicolas Maduro Moros, “as I would entrust my life to you: The Communes, the social State of law and justice.”
In that historic speech, the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution called for criticism and self-criticism and to strengthen the People’s Power, among other policies for the construction of Socialism in the country.
From an early stage of his administration, the native of Sabaneta de Barinas, born on July 28, 1954, promoted the creation of the legal basis and the institutional structure to promote the organization of the People’s Power and to accompany it in the construction of the communal State, as a higher stage of Bolivarian Socialism.
From the hand of Comandante Chavez, the People’s Power Ministry for the Communal Economy was born in 2004 and, in 2005, its similar Ministry for Social Participation and Protection. The Communal Councils began to take shape, and on April 9, 2006, the Law that institutionally recognizes them, was enacted during the broadcasting of the Sunday program “Aló Presidente,” number 252.
These structures of popular sovereignty reached a higher rank in the legislative pyramid with the approval in 2009 of the Organic Law of the Communal Councils, published in the Official Gazette on December 28 of that year, which repealed the 2006 Law.
Communal Councils as an organizational nucleus
Between 2006 and 2010, with the passionate leadership of President Chavez, we enacted several laws to regulate different aspects of the Communal Councils. The Organic Law of Social Controllership (2010), the Organic Law of the Communes (2010), the Organic Law of the Popular Power (2010), the Organic Law of the Communal Economic System (2010), and the Organic Law of Public and Popular Planning (2010); and they were unified in the new People’s Power Ministry for the Communes and Social Movements in March 2009.
In his first Theoretical Aló Presidente, made on June 11, 2009, Commander Hugo Chávez dedicated it to the Communes and the five fronts for the construction of Socialism. “The Communes constitute the guarantee of the welfare and happiness of the people in the XXI century. This is how we ratify it, 12 years after the N° 1 Theoretical “Aló Presidente,” in which our Commander Chavez outlined the path to follow: the consolidation of the Communal State with the grassroots”, recalled President Maduro last year.
In compliance with the mandate of the eternal leader in his Coup de Timon, the head of State delivered on February 10, 2021, the draft Organic Law on Communal Cities for discussion by the National Assembly. To create a new organizational, social and productive model that will serve for the diversification of the economy in the territories.
Rebel with a cause
“El Arañero de Sabaneta” was the second of Hugo de Los Reyes Chavez and Elena Frias’ six children, both primary school teachers. He attended elementary school in his hometown and university at the Venezuelan Military Academy in Caracas, where he graduated with the rank of Second Lieutenant in 1975.
On February 4, 1992, as a military commander, Chavez led an armed insurrection against the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez and his package of neoliberal measures sponsored by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which three years before had motivated the social explosion known as El Caracazo.
With his famous “For Now,” he acknowledged that he was unsuccessful in his attempt at military rebellion, being arrested, tried, and sentenced to two years in prison in Yare prison (1992-1994).
In 1994, the current administration agreed on the dismissal process opened against Chavez. Upon his release, he left the army and embarked with firm determination on the political struggle; he founded the V Republic Movement (MVR) and began to travel around the country socializing his proposals.
His campaign program convinced the electorate in the elections of December 6, 1998, and won the presidency with 56.2% of the votes, immediately promoting the election of a Constituent Assembly that drafted a new constitutional text, approved in an unprecedented referendum in December 1999. In July 2000, he ratified his favoritism at the polls for 2000-2006, being undefeated in victory in electoral processes for the office of President until his sowing in 2013.
On the 68th anniversary of his birth, we recalled that Commander Hugo Chavez Frias promoted a social inclusion policy at all levels. From his first triumph in presidential elections in 1998 until his physical departure in 2013. The Communes are a clear reflection of openness to the people’s participation and empowerment in the construction of their destiny.
