By Luis
Manuel Aguana
Participation in the forum Anniversaries of the chat “Personal Growth” and Alianza Bravo Pueblo, ABP, of the State of Apure, December 7, 2025
Good afternoon,
First of all, I would like to thank Rafael Polanía and the other organizers of this forum for their kind invitation and, of course, congratulate them on the anniversaries of the “Personal Growth” chat and Alianza Bravo Pueblo (ABP) in Apure State. I always welcome an opportunity to talk about ANCO's El Gran Cambio (The Great Change) project, which is becoming increasingly necessary in these troubled times for our country.
It is no secret that for several years ANCO has been proposing a new model of development for the country, based on the historical roots of the founding of the Republic. We have explained time and again that our first Constitution of 1811, the origin of our nationality, established a federal model of government in which the seven provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela agreed to sever their ties with the Spanish Empire. Our entire republican history began at that moment. And that federal model of government was inspired by the spirit of freedom of the Founding Fathers of the United States, which was embodied in their first and only Constitution, ratified on September 17, 1787, just over 23 years before ours.
One of the fundamental contributions to humanity made by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and specifically by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), was the Declaration of Independence of the United States, drafted in 1776. It contains the best definition of the basic principle on which all democracy is based:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” (See Declaration of Independence of the United States, in https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript).
In this sense, Jefferson defines what a government must defend and guarantee: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that men organize themselves into governments to protect these rights. Read carefully: the powers of governments derive from the consent of THEIR CITIZENS. From us. This fundamental principle is contained in Article 347 of the Venezuelan Constitution of 1999. Because this principle is the reason for the existence of a government. That is where we must start.
I wanted to clarify this point at the beginning of this presentation because if we could convince Venezuelans of this fundamental principle that was enunciated 238 years ago in the United States, and which is now a universal principle for the whole world, that the reason governments exist is to guarantee US, THE PEOPLE (“WE, the People,” as the U.S. Constitution begins) the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that we are the reason they hold power, then we will be ensuring that any government that comes after this one or any other will be accountable to the citizens and that we will have a truly democratic country, at peace and with freedom forever.
Now, what is our proposal, The Great Change, really about? What is the concept behind the whole approach, which I assume you have already read or seen in the presentation I sent you? It is about bringing power as close as possible to the citizen so that we can truly guarantee the principle stated above.
That the entire framework of popular representation, which has been distorted over the years since our War of Independence due to the Liberator's demand to centralize the State in order to fight a war, and which has deepened since Venezuela's separation from Gran Colombia to the present day, be reversed in such a way as to return Venezuelans to the concept that prevailed at the origins of our nationality: we, the citizens, are the ones who decide how the State should be built to achieve the greatest possible well-being.
This is another way of presenting the concept of reversing the pyramid of power in Venezuela that I explained in the presentation I sent you: First the municipalities, then the states, and then the country united in a federation of autonomous, strong, and independent states, through a New Constitutional Pact that guarantees the application of all these principles.
This is what we call the REFOUNDING of Venezuela. As you can see, I have not yet mentioned the call for a National Constituent Assembly. Why? Because if this concept is not understood first—what I have called the “purpose” of a Constituent Assembly—it will not make sense to anyone, because we need it as an indispensable tool to achieve our goals.
That is why we cannot propose a National Constituent Assembly to anyone without explaining why we want it. And that is precisely The Great Change. But I will go further: why do we want it in every state of the country? The general project we have written explains changes in the overall structure of the state, in order to return to a federal state in an updated form, such as, for example, the return to federal representation of the states in a bicameral Congress, as has existed since the federalist victory in the Federal War and the Constitution of 1864, where the constitutional text is once again formally called federal.
In this regard, Dr. Irene Loreto González, in an extraordinary work on federalism, states: “This Constitution (that of 1864), approved by the Constituent Assembly and promulgated by the commander-in-chief and president of the Republic, Juan Crisóstomo Falcón, is one of Venezuela's most important constitutions because it transformed the Venezuelan constitutional system by establishing a federal form of government and emphasizing the political and territorial decentralization contained in the 1858 Constitution” (vsee in Spanish Irene Loreto González, Federalismo como sistema político, in http://historiaconstitucionalvenezuela.blogspot.com/2010/06/federalismo-como-sistema-politico.html).
In our project, we attach categorical importance to a new political-territorial division of the country, from the municipal perspective in each state, introducing a reformulated concept of province. After a new Federal Constitution for the Republic of Venezuela is enacted, each state must establish a Constituent Assembly for its own citizens, which will define its own identity and economic development model in accordance with its own potential to generate development and economic growth. Only you know what yours are in the state of Apure.
This requires the prior definition of a Great Change project for each state, where priorities and organization are formulated for each federal entity, as well as the mechanisms of political representation of each state in the federation. That is the next step in our crusade, where you are the main protagonists. No one from anywhere else can define what is best for you in your own state; only you know that, as I said before. We would like to work with you to define ANCO's Great Change project in Apure State.
As you can see, what we are proposing with the Great Change is NOT in any way a government program for a predefined state structure. It is a new structure on which a new model of political, economic, and social development will rest, based on regional independence and representing a New Pact between rulers and ruled that would materialize in a new Political Constitution for Venezuela.
This is by no means a trivial matter, hence the importance of this discussion from the very foundation of society: the citizen. And even more importantly: once this project has been defined in each state, that is what would be fought for politically, and the leaders who emerge will do so precisely to defend that change, not the position of any political leader, nor anyone's leadership, but the improvement of people's quality of life, based on a concrete project for change.
The Great Change is, with due historical perspective, a political project of magnitude, as was the Barranquilla Plan in its day, but without the ideological slant of the revolutionary left that promoted it. The last point of the Barranquilla Plan's implementation program established “the convening, within a period of no more than one year, of a Constituent Assembly to elect a provisional government, reform the constitution, review the most urgently needed laws, and enact those necessary to resolve the political, social, and economic problems that the revolution will bring to the fore...” (see in Spanish Rómulo Betancourt, Barranquilla Plan, March 22, 1931, in https://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Plan_de_Barranquilla). We are not inventing anything that has not happened in Venezuela in the past. The 1961 Constitution came out of that Plan.
It took the promoters of the Barranquilla Plan 30 years to bring this project to fruition, which materialized with the 1961 Constitution and 40 years of continuous democracy. Unfortunately, that model died out when its main protagonists betrayed the values that made democracy possible in 1958 with the Punto Fijo Pact, giving way to the nothingness of a failed Castro-communist project. We cannot return to the same old system without risking repeating the same mistakes that caused the country to collapse in 1992, with Hugo Chávez Frías' attempted coup d'état and its subsequent realization when he came to power in 1998. We must start something completely new.
Only the people can change the equation of power and reverse it in favor of the citizenry. Hence my reference at the beginning to the ideas of freedom that prevailed in the world at the end of the 18th century and which, unfortunately, did not develop in the same way in Venezuela. It is time to understand this and reflect on it for the future. And this is perhaps the best time for that discussion when everything is destroyed in Venezuela. I hope I have added more will to this noble cause with you...
Thank you very much...
Caracas, December 7, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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