“I live in a working-class neighborhood in Caricuao and I was surprised that people were banging pots and pans. That just didn’t happen before.”
This is what an unemployed young man in the centre of Caracas told me, who preferred not to reveal his name: “My neighbourhood has always been a highly Chavista sector,” he added.
Venezuela’s capital has become the epicentre of intense protests rocking the South American country following the announcement of highly disputed election results.
The cacerolazos They emerged spontaneously and broke a silence that reigned in the city perhaps as a consequence of a unexpected election result.
Throughout the day they would turn off and on again in different areas of Caracas.
But few anticipated that would be heard louder in the working-class neighborhoods of the Venezuelan capital, many of which used to be strongholds of the Chavista movement.
From Catia to Petare -one of the most populated cities in Latin America-, passing through La Vega and El Cementerio. The noise in some areas was deafening.
The protest did not stop there. People also spontaneously began to take to the streets, some with their pots and pans in hand.
While opposition leaders remained silent, the streets of Caracas slowly heated up.
“This march is from the Petare neighbourhood. There is no political party here and we don’t have any party that is giving us anything,” María Vázquez, a 60-year-old housewife, told BBC Mundo.
“We left because this fraud must be stopped. This government must leave,” he continued.
The emblematic Plaza Altamira, in the east of the city, once again became the meeting point for the opposition.
Hundreds of Petareños and people from other popular sectors of Caracas and its outskirts (some traveled from the satellite cities of Guarenas and Guatire to protest) gathered there waving flags and shouting: “The united people will never be defeated” and “This government will fall.”
“We don’t want bags”
Jonathan says he moved to Altamira from the Maca sector of Petare to “defend the vote.”
This 39-year-old from Caracas says that the motivation for “the people of the neighborhood”The reason they go out to protest is because they are tired of being mistreated.
“We don’t want bags (of food) or anything from the government. They can take away all the benefits if they want. People here are angry. Did they want the neighborhoods out on the streets? Well, we’re all out now,” he says.
The protests They did not limit themselves to Altamira.
In the Catia neighborhood in the west of the city, José Félix Ribas in Petare (east) and El Valle (south), protesters tore down banners of the president’s electoral propaganda, while other groups occupied the streets of the center of the capital, very close to the National Assembly and the Miraflores Palace, the seat of government.
Many people wanted to get there to “remove” Maduro.
In a video that circulated on social media and was verified by BBC Mundo, a group of people toppled a statue of former President Hugo Chávez in the city of Coro, capital of the state of Falcón, in northwestern Venezuela.
“They are coming back down from the hills”
Alejandro Velascohistorian at New York University and author of the book Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuelawho believes that neighborhoods generally change governments, says that what is happening now in Venezuela has not happened for decades.
However, he hypothesizes that a change in the governance of the South American country It won’t happen instantlybut gradually.
“The Caracazo, without a doubt, when the hills came down, that was what dealt the final blow to Puntofijismo (the two-party system). The formal final blow did not come until 1998, when Chávez was elected, but he was already mortally wounded when the Caracazo took place,” he said in an interview with BBC Mundo in 2017.
Now he insists that the people are coming back down from the hills.
“The neighborhood came down to Caracas today, there is no doubt about that,” he told BBC Mundo.
Velasco assures that the big challenge of opposition leaders In Venezuela it was always unite the popular sectors with the more traditional opposition. People in the neighborhoods found it difficult to identify with these politicians.
“I think we are finally seeing that moment of unity and reunion,” he said.
“The neighborhood does not let itself be intimidated”
For him, one of the factors that drove this union was the great expectation which was created in response to the possibility of that the country took a new direction with the help of a new government.
Another has been the crisis. “Although the economy has improved somewhat compared to previous years, this improvement has not reached the popular sectors. “If you don’t have a relative outside who can send you remittances and if you don’t have access to what little remains of the social welfare state, the only thing you can do is ‘get by’,” he explains.
“This affects the poorest sectors much more. Chavismo had counted on the economic recovery to save them, but the reality is that this is not felt either in the interior of the country or in the poor neighborhoods.”
He believes that the government has a harder time now that the slums have joined the anti-government movement: “The people of the neighborhood are not so easily intimidated.”
“They have taken away our dignity”
That is precisely what another young man from Petare told me in Altamira, who assured me that they, the people from the neighborhood, had absolutely nothing to lose.
“They have taken away our dignity, kid. I don’t have (money) to buy food for my daughter. Look at my shoes, they are all broken, and I don’t have money to buy new ones.”
The National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner on Sunday with 51.2% of the votes, compared to 44.2% for opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, with 80% of the votes counted.
However, González rejected the result along with opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was elected as a pre-candidate in the primaries but was disqualified from running.
“There is a new president-elect and it is Edmundo González, and everyone knows it,” Machado said Sunday night, after assuring that her counts reflected 70% of the votes for González and 30% for Maduro.
Spontaneous expressions
After remaining silent for much of the day, opposition leaders addressed the Venezuelan people at 6:00 pm (local time).
They assured that they have evidence of more than 73% of the minutes which would grant González Urrutia victory in the elections.
Machado also spoke about the protests taking place across the country.
“These are spontaneous expressions in popular sectors. Legitimate expressions. I want to invite you to meet us. Tomorrow, as a family, we will meet in popular assemblies throughout the country,” he said.
He added that the government “wants to generate violence” and urged his followers to remain “in an orderly and civil manner, but very firm.”
The government of Nicolas Maduro responded to the protests with repression.
As night fell, tear gas could be smelled in several parts of the city and gunfire could be heard in several areas.
Most protesters dispersed and went home. But others stayed to respond to authorities.
They set up barricades in various sectors and defended themselves with whatever they could, usually stones and sticks.
“This is difficult because We don’t have weapons like them.“one protester told me.
Katiusca Justo, another 31-year-old woman from Petar, was affected by the tear gas and decided to go home.
“We came out peacefully and what they know is how to repress, but I expected nothing less. I knew that there would most likely be repression and at least tear gas.”
Although he decided to go to rest, He plans to return “tomorrow and as many days as necessary” until this government falls.”
“I am tired of this dictatorship. I spent six years outside my country trying to help my family. But I returned from Bogotá and now I want a better life here in Venezuela,” she adds.
Following the launch of several tear gas bombs In Altamira the protest dispersed, but soon the pots and pans began to ring out again from the balconies of the buildings in the area.
While calm returned to Altamira, conflict persisted in other areas of Caracas, with objects set on fire in some sectors and police forces prepared to put down the remaining marches.
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