I wished to leave the subject of tomorrow's November 21 elections alone, not because it did not deserve an additional note to the many I have destined to insist on its illegitimacy, as well as the manifest collaborationism of the official opposition to the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros, who will come out next Monday demanding legitimacy from the International Community after having consummated the electoral fraud they have accustomed us to in every election since the 2004 recall referendum; but because I found so controversial and contradictory, to say the least, the communiqué of the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference, CEV, suggesting not to abstain in these elections: "Simple abstention, without awareness and transforming will does not lead to generate the necessary changes and much less will a blind vote that does not take into account the analysis of each lived reality framed in the dramatic structural and institutional situation of the nation achieve it" (Point No. 9) (see in Spanish CEV Communiqué, Beyond the Regional Elections, in https://conferenciaepiscopalvenezolana.com/comision-permanente-de-la-cev-dirige-comunicado-mas-alla-de-las-elecciones-regionales).
It is perfectly understandable that the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference is composed of Bishops who think differently about how to face what is happening to us in Venezuela, but what cannot pass is incoherence. The communiqués of the CEV have been consistently forceful in rejecting tyranny and defending the Human Rights of the Venezuelan people. That is what they should do.
I was struck by the fact that in spite of the true and proven fact that the Venezuelan electoral system is a machine to manufacture votes in favor of the regime and not to elect legitimate authorities, as the Bishops are well aware, and precisely because of that regime which the CEV itself has characterized on repeated occasions, "as "morally unacceptable" due to its internationally recognized disrespect for human rights, the destruction of the productive structure and an unprecedented impoverishment of the great majorities due to lack of investment, incentives, legal security and financial stability" (Point No. 2), the Bishops insist on a neutral position that saves the regime from having completely destroyed the institution of the vote as a mechanism to authentically elect rulers in Venezuela. In other words, to have turned the Venezuelan electoral system into a machine to manufacture votes, but not to elect rulers, contravening the fundamental principle of every electoral system: To be the full expression of the popular will.
The apathy to which the CEV's communiqué refers in its point No. 4 is precisely for that reason. What is the point of going to vote if the regime will always keep everything? Is the CEV forgetting what happened in the previous regional election where the election was denied to Andres Velasquez in the State of Bolivar, even though he had the records in his hands, and a "protector" with more powers was appointed to the Governor of Tachira? Is the CEV unaware that the figure invented by the regime of the "protectors", completely unconstitutional, is precisely to prevent the popular will to deliver the legitimate power to the elected governors and mayors from becoming effective?
Then, on November 21st , Venezuelans will not be "electing" their local governors, and the electoral system will be used again to APPOINT whoever the regime deems convenient for its interests. As well indicated by the CEV, the background is "...the imposition of a communal system, proclaimed by some members of the government, which will weaken and probably eliminate the functions of the governorships, mayors' offices and other expressions of local power, as well as the effective competences of their authorities, with the purpose of establishing a hegemonic power from non-elected social bases, in contravention of the provisions of the National Constitution" (Point No. 3).
And after rightly denouncing all this, how can the Bishops leave to the free conscience of each one "the decision to participate or not" (Point No. 5) in an absolutely irritating process? The least we expect, as befits the spiritual shepherds we believe they belong to the Venezuelan people, is their conscientious action, clearly sending to their parishioners a message of citizen rebellion and Christian faith in the face of this horrendous reality. The gravity of Venezuela indicates that it is no longer possible to continue playing the politics of "looking good" and remain impassive and ambiguous to what is happening, on the edge of a knife that is deeply wounding the hearts of all Venezuelans. If anyone could transmit this message of courageous citizen resistance, it is precisely them, representatives of the Christians who martyred themselves for what they legitimately believed in more than 2000 years ago. That is the unshakable faith that should be transmitted by an imperishable Catholic Church.
The Governors, Mayors and Municipal Councilors WILL NOT BE ELECTED, as indicated by the CEV in its point No. 6, they will be APPOINTED by the regime on the 21N through a distorted and corrupt system of the CNE. 6, they will be DESIGNATED by the regime on 21N through a distorted and corrupt system of the CNE, so they could not assume later ".... the democratic political responsibility of strengthening integration and not exclusion, social friendship and not revanchism, the creation of opportunities and not the closing of roads", and much less will they have "the ethical capacity and suitability in the management of state or municipal budgets, in such a way that the resources reach the recipients and do not remain in the perverse paths of corruption and embezzlement". Nor will they be "able to dialogue with all sectors of their communities, especially with the poorest and most excluded, to legitimize themselves by being effective bridges in solving their problems".
And why won't they do it? Because they will be appointed by the regime through its electoral casino and not by the will of the people. Hence the hopelessness that the people have for all electoral processes and that will not end until their natural leaderships, and especially the spiritual ones, do not assume an open and combative attitude towards the iniquities committed by the regime. Nobody said that this will be easy, but it is definitely and absolutely necessary. That is why a leadership in accordance with the serious moment that Venezuelans are going through is essential.
The CEV announces the possibility and need for new social leadership to emerge through this electoral process "that will have to propose new alternatives to the centralizing project of the national government, but also seek ways of meeting for the fair political, economic and social development of the regional and local particularities. ...." (Point No. 8), will not emerge from this illegitimate process of the regime but AS A CONSEQUENCE of it.
The Venezuelan people, fed up with so much deceit from this mediocre opposition leadership, will have no other alternative but to go to the very source of the bowels of civil society and manufacture them, because what will be left after November 21 will not be the human material that Venezuela requires for its salvation and reconstruction. And the most tangible proof of this will be seen when that same opposition, after its defeat on November 21, asks Venezuelans to join them in a recall referendum in 2022, which will seal the victory of the regime, which will have won from now on with the votes collected from a naïve citizenry because it will have achieved the legitimacy before the International Community that Venezuelans had denied it after many years and deaths.
I agree with the Bishops when they say "If we want something to change, we need to get out of the daily prostration through concrete and communitarian proposals that awaken citizens' conscience and mobilize wills to recover politics as a place of participation, exercise of democratic rights and civic protagonism" (Point No. 9). Nothing could be truer. But this will only echo in a citizenry believing in an honest political leadership, with morals and ethics, and in a faithful membership in a Catholic Church that sends messages that correspond to its own position, no matter how difficult they may be.
Venezuelans urgently need and long for coherent messages in accordance with their reality. That was what they received from the Catholic Church in the historic Pastoral of Monsignor Rafael Arias Blanco on May 1st, 1957, read in all the churches, in the voices of all the parish priests of Venezuela, and which, in the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, ".... shook the national conscience and lit the first spark of subversion". With a completely resteined Church, I have the hope and faith that this spark that we desperately need will still be there for the good of all Venezuelans...
Caracas, November 20, 2021
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