PSUV Accused of Expulsing Marea Socialista Dissidents

Political analyst and dissident chavista Nicmer Evans tweeted that according to his sources only 10% of PSUV members in Caracas turned out and that less than one million members nationally participated in the election. “It [the PSUV] doesn’t stop being a great machine, but it continues to reduce,” he said. The PSUV’s internal election was preceded by accusations made through media that two leaders of the dissident leftist grouping in the PSUV, Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide), had been arbitrarily removed from the party’s membership. Marea Socialista claimed in a 20 November press release that Nicmer Evans and Heiber Barreto Sanchez, along with Carlos Hurtado, the coordinator of the Socialist Middle Class organisation, had been made absent from an electronic list of party members ahead of the internal election ...  The controversy comes after several chavista organisations, including Socialist Middle Class, declared their intention to work with MS in pushing a critical line and alternative solutions to the country’s current economic woes and perceived problems of official corruption and bureaucracy. More…