Venezuela popular consultation lets more than 5,400 communes choose from 37,205 community projects, expanding participation to condominium boards.

Related: Venezuela Holds the Second National Popular Consultation of 2026

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Venezuela Popular Consultation Becomes Democratic Tradition

The Venezuela popular consultation is taking place across the country on Sunday, October 18, as more than 5,400 communes choose between 37,205 community development projects.

Venezuela’s Sectoral Vice President for Planning, Ricardo Menéndez, said the Second Popular Consultation of 2026 reaffirms the principles of grassroots democracy and strengthens the country’s participatory political system.

Menéndez described the consultation as a space that brings neighbors together to improve daily life and build broad national consensus.

The official said the exercise has become part of the democratic culture of the Venezuelan people. He argued that participation has gradually become a cultural practice within each commune, helping to create a new form of government and reorganize the state.

Menéndez linked the process to the political project promoted by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who has called for the redesign of state institutions around community participation.

The consultation allows residents to decide which projects should receive public financing and which priorities should guide local development.

The process is based on proposals selected during open community assemblies. Residents first identify local needs, then rank projects and submit them for a national vote.

The initiative seeks to move beyond traditional representative democracy by giving communities a direct role in allocating public resources.

More than 5,418 communes are participating in the vote. Each community is choosing among seven projects selected during assemblies held in the weeks leading up to the consultation.

The projects were developed through the Concrete Action Agendas, a planning process designed to identify local needs and organize community priorities.

The proposals address basic services and infrastructure needs, including drinking water, road repairs, school rehabilitation, health centers, electricity, public lighting, agriculture and sports facilities.

The consultation is taking place in 11,495 voting centers across Venezuela. Authorities said the centers will remain open as long as voters are waiting in line.

The process is supported by more than 12,700 electoral tables and approximately 48,086 communal councils organized within the country’s communes.

Unlike ordinary elections, the popular consultation allows citizens aged 15 and older to participate. The rule expands participation to young people who are not yet eligible to vote in general elections.

🇻🇪 Venezuela inicia hoy 18 de octubre la Segunda Consulta Popular Nacional de 2026. Millones de ciudadanos participan en más de 11.000 centros de votación*en todo el territorio nacional. #18Oct #ConsultaPopular2026 #ConsultaPopular #Venezuela pic.twitter.com/bNHaAyEqay

— teleSUR TV (@teleSURtv) October 18, 2026

Venezuela Popular Consultation Expands Participation

Venezuela’s Ministry of Popular Power for Communes | Venezuela’s National Electoral Council

The Venezuela popular consultation includes a major new feature: for the first time, condominium boards are participating in the process.

Approximately 120,000 condominium boards and neighborhood organizations are voting on 428 projects related to health, school rehabilitation, roads, agriculture and sports areas.

The inclusion of condominium boards expands the consultation beyond the traditional communal councils and communes that have participated in previous editions.

The change reflects an effort to involve urban residents who organize through apartment buildings and housing associations rather than through formal communal structures.

The government says the incorporation of condominiums will allow resources to reach communities that previously had limited access to participatory budgeting.

The initiative is also intended to strengthen links between residents, local authorities and state institutions.

The 428 condominium projects were selected through assemblies held in buildings and residential complexes. Residents identified needs such as repairs to common areas, water systems, electrical installations, elevators, roofs and access routes.

The projects are concentrated in several states, including Anzoátegui, Aragua, Carabobo, Lara, Miranda, Zulia and Caracas.

The pilot program covers approximately 40,097 families and includes 461 condominiums and 83 neighborhood organizations.

Authorities say the experience will be evaluated before condominium boards are incorporated more broadly into future consultations.

The expansion is significant because urban housing has become a central issue in Venezuela. Many buildings require maintenance after years of limited investment, economic pressure and damage caused by natural disasters.

The consultation also responds to the impact of the earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24. Some communities have proposed projects to rehabilitate vulnerable housing and repair public infrastructure affected by the tremors.

The government says the process ensures that resources are directed according to community priorities rather than decisions made exclusively by central authorities.

The consultation is the eighth national popular consultation organized since 2024 and the second held during 2026.

The first consultation of 2026 took place on March 8. The second was originally scheduled for July 12 but was postponed because of the June earthquakes.

Delcy Rodríguez announced the new date after community organizations requested additional time to address the damage caused by the seismic events.

The consultation is therefore taking place amid reconstruction efforts in areas affected by the earthquakes, including La Guaira and other parts of central Venezuela.

The government has emphasized that the process is supported by Article 70 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which recognizes referendums, consultations and other forms of direct participation.

The constitutional framework provides the legal basis for citizens to participate in decisions affecting public life, including the selection of local development projects.

Community Projects Target Basic Services

Venezuela’s Ministry of Planning | Venezuela’s Communes and Social Movements

The Venezuela popular consultation is designed to direct public resources toward projects identified by residents themselves.

The proposals reflect the immediate needs of communities across the country. Water supply is one of the most common concerns, with approximately 14 percent of the projects related to improving access to drinking water.

Water shortages have affected many Venezuelan communities because of damaged infrastructure, irregular electricity supply and limited maintenance capacity.

Other projects focus on road repairs, public lighting, electricity, school rehabilitation, health centers, sports facilities and agricultural production.

The projects are intended to address both immediate needs and longer-term development goals.

In Mérida state, for example, more than 1,700 community projects are being voted on. Local priorities include roads, water, education and public services.

In Caracas, communities have proposed projects to rehabilitate vulnerable housing damaged by the June earthquakes, repair building facades and improve communal spaces.

The consultation gives residents the opportunity to select the project they consider most urgent. The winning project is expected to receive financing, while other proposals may be included in a project bank for future funding.

The process is intended to prevent resources from being allocated according to political discretion or administrative convenience.

The government says the consultation is part of a broader effort to build what it calls a communal state. That model seeks to strengthen local organizations and give communities greater authority over public resources.

The communal model is based on the idea that citizens should participate directly in decisions affecting their neighborhoods, rather than relying solely on elected representatives.

The government argues that the consultation creates a new form of governance in which communities become the foundation of public planning.

Critics question whether the process has sufficient transparency and whether resources are distributed equitably across all regions.

They also point to Venezuela’s economic difficulties, including inflation, shortages and limited access to foreign currency, which can affect the implementation of approved projects.

The government has responded by saying that the consultation is a mechanism for organizing communities and directing scarce resources toward priority needs.

The participation of condominium boards and neighborhood associations could make the process more inclusive, but it also increases the administrative challenge of verifying projects and ensuring that funds are used correctly.

The consultation’s results will provide information about the priorities of Venezuelan communities. They may also influence future planning and budget decisions.

Geopolitical Context

The Venezuela popular consultation has political significance beyond local development because it forms part of the government’s effort to strengthen communal democracy.

The process is designed to consolidate the role of communes, communal councils and neighborhood organizations in public administration.

The government presents the consultation as a response to external pressure and as evidence that Venezuela’s political system remains active despite economic difficulties and international sanctions.

The consultation also has a regional dimension. Venezuela’s communal model has been promoted as an alternative to traditional representative democracy and has influenced political debates in other Latin American countries.

The inclusion of condominium boards could expand the model to urban communities that have historically been less connected to communal structures.

The process may therefore influence how other governments think about participatory budgeting, local planning and community organization.

The consultation is taking place during a period of reconstruction following the June earthquakes. The government is seeking to demonstrate that communities can participate in decisions about recovery and public investment.

The popular consultation also reinforces the government’s argument that public resources should be directed toward social needs rather than private profit.

The challenge will be to ensure that approved projects are completed and that communities can monitor their implementation.

The Venezuela popular consultation is therefore both a voting exercise and a broader political process aimed at reorganizing the state around community participation.

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On October 4, I published a post on "Libertarianism and Democracy," critiquing political philosopher Matt Zwolinski's earlier Liberalism.Org article on the same topic. Earlier today, I posted Matt's response to me. The present post is my rejoinder:

I would like to thank Matt for his interesting and insightful response. We agree on several key points, including that democracy is generally superior to authoritarianism, that libertarian critiques of democracy have great merit, and that - in much of the world - the most serious threats to liberty now come from the nationalist right, rather than the the political left. But we still differ on a few key points related to libertarianism and democracy.

The Nature of Libertarian Critiques of Democracy

Perhaps the most crucial disagreement is about the nature of libertarian critiques of democracy. Matt suggests that "[m]ost of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government." If so, libertarians can just focus on criticizing big government generally, while simultaneously extolling democracy.

There are indeed flaws of big government that arise regardless of whether it is democratic or authoritarian. But those outlined in my earlier Liberalism.Org article are in fact specific to democracy. They include tyranny of the majority, voter ignorance, and the tendency of democracy to create opportunities for illiberal forces to seize power and - in the worst case scenario - even destroy democracy itself.  Tyranny of the majority is obviously a problem distinctive to democracy. The same goes for rational voter ignorance, which arises from the perverse incentive structure  of individual voters, who have only an infinitesimally small chance of influencing electoral outcomes. And, while illiberal forces can and do seize power under authoritarian systems, the pathways democracies (usually involving the electoral process) create for them are distinctive.

Authoritarian systems have their own distinctive flaws, which are generally even worse. But the distinctive nature of democracy's flaws means they cannot simply be folded into a generic critique of big government. In addition, as noted in my response to Matt, these distinctive flaws of democracy are at the heart of many of today's most serious threats to liberty and justice in many democratic systems, including the threats posed by the nationalist right. Thus, it is important for libertarians to emphasize the nature and gravity of these weaknesses, and the value of our proposals for dealing them (which in many cases are different from and better than those advanced by other types of liberals). As emphasized in my earlier response, this is an area where libertarians often have a comparative advantage over other liberals. On the other hand, we generally do not have a comparative advantage when it comes to explaining why democracy is better than authoritarianism.

Along related lines, Matt suggests that libertarian critiques of the state aren't "an argument against democratic control of whatever the state does do." But once we recognize that democracy has significant distinctive flaws, there is actually a case for insulating some functions of government from democratic control. Obvious examples include the judiciary and monetary policy (unless we want to cut government out of the latter entirely, and adopt free banking). Indeed, even most non-libertarian liberals recognize that such insulation is desirable in some cases, most notably the courts.

The Problem of Libertarians Tempted by Authoritarianism

Matt argues that we should, nonetheless devote extensive energy to extolling democracy, because doing so is likely to have an impact on fellow libertarians who may otherwise be tempted to embrace authoritarianism. It is likely true that libertarians tempted in this way are more easily dissuaded by other libertarians than by non-libertarians. But such people are a tiny minority within an minority. Libertarians are a small group (probably around 5-10% of the US population or even less, depending on how you draw the line). Those sympathetic to authoritarianism are much fewer still. Thus, it makes little sense to devote more than a modest amount of time and effort to dealing with them, as opposed to addressing the much larger group of non-libertarian liberals who need to be more cognizant of the dangerous shortcomings of democracy.

Moreover, when we look at libertarians who have shifted to the "alt right" or otherwise become advocates of illiberal ideas, the problem in most cases is not excessive skepticism of democracy, but insufficient commitment to liberty - particularly, the liberty of people from different ethnic, racial, or religious backgrounds, that of migrants, and those with unconventional lifestyles. That is pretty obviously the case with Curtis Yarvin and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, both mentioned by Matt. The former's advocacy of a "post-liberal" ideology of repression (which is really based on pre-liberal models) is pretty obviously not the product of a man who thinks authoritarianism is a better way to protect liberty than democracy. Indeed, his concern is exactly the opposite (that democracy allows for way too much liberty). The same goes for Hoppe's advocacy of repression of immigrants, gays and lesbians, and people with various non-traditional lifestyles. Peter Thiel, the third case mentioned by Matt, is that of a person who has abandoned libertarianism for "national conservatism," an ideology focused on exalting the interests of ethnic and culture majorities and using the state to punish perceived "enemies." To the extent we want to focus on dissuading such people, it should be to reemphasize the value of liberty for all, not extolling the virtues of democracy. People who value democracy more than liberty are generally unlikely to become libertarians in the first place.

Two  Smaller Issues

Matt and I also have a modest disagreement over whether there can be situations where some form of authoritarianism can be a lesser evil compared to democracy. I think such cases are extremely rare, but not nonexistent. Matt's position is less clear, and perhaps I misunderstand him. But he does seem to want to deny this possibility. In response to my examples of the allied occupations of Germany and Japan after World War II, he seems to think these don't really count because "those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended." But they were still cases where non-democratic government was imposed on a population, and that population itself did not have control over when and if it would end.

In these cases, a non-democratic occupation government was a lesser evil than immediate establishment of democracy, because of the highly illiberal nature of German and Japanese majority public opinion at the time.  Similar circumstances can potentially arise in other countries. And, in some cases, a domestically generated authoritarian regime might still be a lesser evil than any democracy that is feasible at the time.

In some situations, the problem can be dealt with by limiting democracy, rather than abjuring it completely. For example, as noted in my earlier response, post-occupation West Germany long banned Nazis and communists from competing in elections, but otherwise committed to free electoral competition. But there could be situations where such constraints are not enough. Because such cases are highly unusual, this is not a particularly important disagreement. But it does have relevance in situations where we consider how to deal with a society where majority public opinion is deeply illiberal.

Finally - and least important - Matt differs with me about the use of the terms "libertarian" and "classical liberal," arguing that the former are more likely to be democracy-skeptics than the latter. We can, if we want, define the two terms in such a way that people we label with one are generally more suspicious of democracy than those we label with the other one. But that is not the way the terms are typically used. That said, different people use these terms in different ways. To my mind, they are mostly just alternative labels for the same general ideology. But I don't have much of a beef with people who prefer to use them differently than I do, so long as they make clear what they mean.

Ultimately, Matt and I agree on much more than we differ. But a few of the issues we differ have real significance. I am grateful for the opportunity to consider them.

The post Libertarianism and Democracy Revisited - A Rejoinder to Matt Zwolinski appeared first on Reason Magazine.

On October 4, I published a post on "Libertarianism and Democracy," critiquing political philosopher Matt Zwolinski's earlier Liberalism.Org article on the same topic. Matt has written a response to me, which I have agreed to post at this site. The remaining paragraphs of this post were written by Matt Zwolinski, not me (Ilya Somin). I have posted a rejoinder to Matt's thoughtful response here.

Who Should Defend Democracy?

A reply to Ilya Somin

My recent Liberalism.org essay, "Democracy Belongs on the List," made the case that classical liberals should count democracy among their core commitments, alongside private property, free markets, and the rule of law. And it belongs there for the same reason. Like property rights and markets, democracy is a crucial way of keeping power in check.

Ilya Somin has written a generous and thoughtful reply to that piece. And I think he actually agrees with me more than the framing of his post might suggest. Ilya grants that democracies are generally freer and more prosperous than the alternatives, that democracy is "a valuable check on power," that libertarians should arguably stress these points "more often," and that "in much of the world today, right-wing nationalists pose a greater threat to libertarian values and priorities than the political left does." What's left mainly comes down to two questions: what counts as a libertarian critique of democracy, and whose job it is to defend democracy.

Before turning to those substantive issues, though, there's one terminological matter that's worth clearing up. Ilya says that nothing of significance hinges on whether we call our view "libertarian" or "classical liberal." And on most questions I'd agree. On this one, though, I think the difference matters. In The Individualists, John Tomasi and I draw a distinction between strict libertarians and classical liberals. The former group tends to treat liberty as a moral absolute and to derive their politics from a single overarching principle like the non-aggression axiom. Think Murray Rothbard or Ayn Rand. The latter treat liberty as a strong but defeasible presumption and are more empiricist and pluralistic in their approach to politics. Think Friedrich Hayek or Richard Epstein.

My sense is that these two camps within the broader "liberty movement" have taken pretty different stances toward democracy, with strict libertarians being much more critical than their classical liberal brethren. Even back in the 19th century, you could find Benjamin Tucker insisting that voting is always a form of aggression, and Lysander Spooner arguing that women "have just as good a right to make laws as men have, and no better: AND THAT IS JUST NO RIGHT AT ALL." Herbert Spencer was even willing to walk back his support of women's suffrage once he decided that women would probably use their vote to support bigger government. That's a pretty different take than anything you're likely to find in Ludwig von Mises or Friedrich Hayek (more on whom later), let alone in John Stuart Mill.

That brings us to the first of the two substantive issues under dispute. Ilya argues that recent events have made libertarian critiques of democracy more important than ever, and that the libertarian solutions to democracy's flaws are "primarily to limit and decentralize government power." I'm with him on that, but I don't think this settles, or even really addresses, the debate about democracy. Limiting and decentralizing government power is a claim about the scope of the state, about how much government should do. It's a principle that would apply to any government, whether democratic or not. And, crucially, it isn't an argument against democratic control of whatever the state does do.

That distinction was at the heart of my essay. Following Jacob Levy, I argued that classical liberals have let a perfectly sound critique of too much government slide into a skepticism about democracy itself, treating democracy, in Levy's words, "as if the contrast to 'democratic' were 'economic' rather than 'autocratic.'" One can be a radical about reducing the scope of the state and still insist that its agents must be answerable to the people they govern. Most of what Ilya calls the libertarian critique of democracy is really a critique of big government. That's an argument I largely agree with, as far as it goes. The trouble comes when we file it under the wrong heading. When we ourselves blur the line between critiques of state power and critiques of democracy, we shouldn't be surprised when people come away thinking libertarians are against democracy.

That brings me to comparative advantage, which is where I think Ilya's argument is most interesting but also most mistaken. Libertarians are a small minority, he says, and "we have no comparative advantage when it comes to extolling the virtues of democracy relative to authoritarianism. Other types of liberals can do this work just as well as we can, perhaps better." So we should stick to what we do best, which is analyzing democracy's flaws.

This argument might make sense in some contexts. But as a general principle, I think it misfires, and it misfires most badly when the audience is classical liberals and libertarians themselves. That, after all, is where the turn against democracy has actually happened. Hans-Hermann Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed argued that monarchy was preferable to democracy, and complained that "habitual democrats" had been tolerated rather than "isolated, excluded and expelled from civilization." Curtis Yarvin, who came to neoreaction by way of libertarianism, credits Hoppe with opening "a kind of door to the pre-revolutionary world" for him. And in 2009, Peter Thiel wrote in a Cato Institute publication that "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." None of this follows from the libertarian critique of voter ignorance, and nothing Ilya has written points in this direction. But it grew in a movement where, as Janet Bufton recently put it in Liberal Currents, "even liberal libertarians were taught arguments about why democracy fails," and hardly anyone was making the case for democracy on libertarian terms. Any old liberal can explain to the public why democracy beats dictatorship. But a libertarian drifting toward Hoppe or Yarvin isn't going to listen to them. Only libertarians can tell libertarians that democracy is theirs.

So if democracy is a libertarian value, what kind of libertarian value is it? Ilya argues that democracy shouldn't be "a first-order libertarian priority, on par with liberty, constraining coercion, property rights, and increasing human happiness," because its value is instrumental rather than intrinsic. I agree that the value of democracy is instrumental. In that way, it's in precisely the same position as a number of items on the classical liberal list. Free trade, federalism, judicial review, and the rule of law are instrumental too. What I want to resist is the claim that because democracy is only instrumentally valuable it's therefore dispensable – something that can be traded away whenever we can imagine something better. What we can imagine, though, is a poor guide to what works. The better question, as David Schmidtz argues, is what has "an observable history of leading self-interested agents to act in ways that are useful and agreeable to the people around them," and by that test democracy has very few rivals.

Which leaves us with Hayek. Ilya defends Hayek's preference for "a liberal dictator to a democratic government lacking liberalism" as a claim about rare hypothetical cases, and suggests that transitional non-democratic rule "may be necessary" in places like Russia and China, citing the Allied occupations of Germany and Japan. But those occupations were run by democracies answerable to their own voters, and they ended. Russia and China, in contrast, have no outside power that could impose a transition and then hand power back. The only realistic candidate for transitional power in those countries is a domestic strongman, which is exactly the case Hayek had in front of him. Hayek wasn't musing about hypotheticals; he was talking about Chile.

Ultimately, Ilya and I want the same thing. We both advocate a form of libertarianism that resists concentrated power wherever it appears, including when it arrives through the ballot box. Where we differ is on the need to say out loud that democracy is one of the ways we resist it. I think we should, and I think libertarians are better placed to say it than anyone, since the people who most need to hear it are our own.

The post Who Should Defend Democracy? appeared first on Reason Magazine.