I wondered about what direction the government would take under Maduro, and this report is encouraging in that it suggests a direction toward strengthening elements of bottom-up political structures that were created as the foundation of the pretentious name of "socialism for the 21st century".
Under Chavez reforms to the existing capitalist system stalled as illustrated by the government's primary use of communal councils as merely political support for Chavez's political party. As such it was closer to "clientelism", a populist form of government found occasionally in Latin America, than it was to any form of genuine socialism. But, time will tell whether Maduro is very serious about this.
“We’ve inherited the structure of the bourgeois government, the bourgeois state. We need to erect a new structure,” the president declared.
Part of this restructuring will be a greater focus by ministries on mechanisms of grassroots power. “We call ourselves ministries of people’s power. We have to be ministries of peoples power,” Maduro exhorted.
