By Carlos Aznárez with photos by Yaimi Ravelo on July 26, 2024, from Caracas / Resumen Latinoamericano
The mere announcement of the appearance of the “gallo pinto” Nicolás Maduro on the gigantic stage installed on Bolívar Avenue, made the crowd that overflowed the length and breadth of that popular Caracas artery, and all the surrounding avenues and streets, tremble with joy.
There were 800, 900 thousand or a million, who cares, they were many many men and women who came in boisterous and colorful marches from all the poor neighborhoods of the Capital. And Nicolás Maduro did not disappoint them again, because as the Eternal Commander Hugo Chávez said, “love is paid with love”.
The President, who has no doubts that he will be reelected after traveling all over the country and encountering similar scenes, in people and emotions, received the sovereign with an impressive shout: “Caracas, we did it again”. And he is right, because Chavismo, that mixture of a liberating ideological proposal, unshakable popular sentiment and methodology of revolutionary action, has been doing it for no less than 35 years. Giving dignity to those at the bottom, raising self-esteem through the acquisition of class consciousness and building from that moment onwards the tools to advance towards the socialist homeland and at the same time deploying constant mechanisms of self-defense against internal and external enemies.
fall in love with Maduro
It gives pleasure and healthy envy, for those who write this thinking of the current Argentine nightmare, to see the familiar and powerful relationship between the people and their leader, because Maduro is something more than a driver who has been able to live up to the difficult circumstances he has had to live since the moment Chávez passed the baton to him to prevent the loss of all that has been built. And it is this promise to comply with such transcendental legacy what has been generating the passion with which the women and men, the young and the old of this brave people cheered the President at all times on this special Thursday, where besides the closing of the campaign, the Day of the City is celebrated.
Thus, in his speech, the President was measuring the tune of the condemnation to those who will face him this Sunday integrating the ranks of the “pitiyanqui” oligarchy, as Chávez said, and he raged several times against the “monigote”, “puppet of the bourgeoisie” and other epithets dedicated to Edmundo González, without even 
mentioning his puppeteer María Corina Machado. “You would vote on Sunday for a puppet president managed by the Yankees”, “You want Venezuela to become Argentina?”, he asked several times to that grateful people, and the negative roar made it clear that the Bolivarian Revolution has strongly penetrated the Chavistas, who are willing not only to vote but to defend it in all fields.
And so this anti-liberal communion continued for a couple of hours, based on the idea of uniting from below all those who are determined to continue leading a process which, in the framework of today’s Caribbean Latin America, is an example of revolutionary construction of the people’s power.
In this framework where he vindicated from popular religiosity to the invaluable and increasingly defensible experience of the communes, Maduro urged to vote on the 28th so that the nation does not become a colony, so that everything sown and built by Chávez and the current government is not handed over to a revanchist and predatory oligarchy. And in the middle of this back and forth dialogue, suddenly the political ceremony turned into a party, and the people and their leader danced, jumped, hugged each other, cried together with emotion, while guests from all over the world who accompanied the voting, felt that as long as this wonderful Venezuela exists -and of course, also the beloved Cuba- there is hope of turning everything around and kicking out of each of our countries the fascists, the gringos and their pimps who today occupy positions they do not deserve.
The end was full of music and the crowd declared in its own way that there is Chavismo for a while, and it did so between the emotional scene of a flag-waving in front of the stage, the waving of flaming flags with the names of the organizations that make up the Great Patriotic Pole, and a tribute to themselves for their revolutionary determination.
Carlos Aznarez is an Argentine journalist, writer is the director of Resumen Latinoamericano. He is the author of several books of historical reflection and research.
Yaimi Ravelo is a photo journalist with Resumen Latinoamericano – Havana
Source: Cuba en Resumen