Challenging the Washington Consensus
By Tariq Ali
CounterPunch
"........What of the country he leaves behind? A paradise? Certainly not. How could it be, given the scale of the problems? But he leaves behind a very changed society in which the poor felt they had an important stake in the government. There is no other explanation for his popularity. Venezuela is divided between his partisans and detractors. He died undefeated, but the big tests lie ahead. The system he created, a social democracy based on mass mobilisations, needs to progress further. Will his successors be up to the task? In a sense, that is the ultimate test of the Bolívarian experiment.
Of one thing we can be sure. His enemies will not let him rest in peace. And his supporters? His supporters, the poor throughout the continent and elsewhere, will see him as a political leader who promised and delivered social rights against heavy odds; as someone who fought for them and won."
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