By Luis Manuel Aguana
I had decided not to enter into the discussion
about voting or not voting in the 15-O elections so as not to add fuel to a
fire that I consider completely manipulated and irrelevant. But there are some
arguments in which they “get you in” even if you don't want to, because even
without giving any opinion they already assign you one. And in this case, since
it is the same opposition that demonizes those of us who consider that the
option of not exercising this right now (emphasizing the right now) is
completely personal and individual, I feel obliged to intervene because I
believe that despite so many blows there are still many confused people who
defend foreign positions without sitting down to analyze this political fact
with their own heads.
Without intending to rewrite my last note of
the year 2012, dedicated precisely to this topic because of the cake put on by
our official opposition in the elections of 7-O of the same year (please read
especially “Abstentionism in times of dictatorship”, at http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2012/12/abstencionismo-en-tiempos-de-dictadura.html), I will try to explain - again - this position, not with the idea of
influencing anyone's decision to vote or not to vote, but so that whoever has
made their decision in one way or another does so with the best possible
knowledge of the facts.
It said in
that 2012 note that abstention in a democratic context was not the same as
abstention in a non-democratic or authoritarian context. According to the
definition of CAPEL (Centro Interamericano de Asesoría y Promoción Electoral),
a specialized program of the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights,
electoral abstentionism is defined in different ways to be interpreted
according to the regime where it occurs (see CAPEL, Diccionario Electoral,
Primera Edición, Costa Rica, 1989 http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNABI451.pdf):
“Electoral abstentionism arises from different
perspectives in democratic regimes and authoritarian regimes. In the former, it
may imply the existence of political currents that do not form part of the
normal political game, although it generally responds to individual impulses or
motivations that are fully respected and assumed even when they exceed certain
percentage limits. In autocratic regimes, in which special emphasis is placed -
sometimes adulterating the figures - on achieving the highest electoral turnout
rates, non-participation is considered the public expression of an opposition and
is exposed, in addition to legal sanctions - since voting is considered a duty
rather than a right - to other social ones.
In other
words, according to this definition in the CAPEL Electoral Dictionary, the
official opposition demonizes the Venezuelan electorate of a reaction that is
completely natural in authoritarian regimes. Again, and as in 2012, the
abstention shown in an authoritarian regime such as that of Hugo Chávez at the
time and in the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro now has a different meaning than
that of a democracy. And again, this meaning internationally is that of civic
protest.
To place in
opposition those who wish to vote with those who do not wish to do so for the
international reasons set out above is, to say the least, an act of misery and
abject manipulation of a collaborationist opposition that needs those votes as
a place with purposes that go in the same direction as the regime's purposes:
survival.
A
population manipulated with something that is completely sensed and sacred by
all Venezuelans, such as the institution of the vote, will not be in a position
to fight for what is truly central as the immediate solution to their problems,
because precisely this manipulation tells them that if they do not vote they
will not be resolved. And the saddest thing is that having done so massively
and above the same expectations of the official opposition in December 2015, we
are in a worse situation than that moment. Then the problem seems not to be
that we support the leaders of this opposition, but rather what they do with
the mandate given to them. The 16J is a familiar sample of that.
They are asking us to vote again,
and some will be convinced to give it to them. I respect that. But just as they
are given the power to lead opposition actions, so too must their results be
demanded. In my opinion, the most regrettable results we have not been able to
achieve since the last election. Opposing parties now need our votes to
maintain their client infrastructure. He needs to pay militancy. Yeah, it sounds
tough. Many of these boys dressed in opposition colors are paid by the payrolls
of opposition governors and mayoralties in the same way as the government does.
This kind of symbiosis, where I live from you
and you from me, places Vichy's collaborationism, as Ambassador Diego Arria
says in his last and clarifying article of the New Herald (see "Vichy in
Venezuela? http://www.elnuevoherald.com/opinion-es/opin-col-blogs/opinion-sobre-venezuela/article178268281.html) as a survival guide to as place above the peremptory needs of
Venezuelans, leaving aside the pivotal struggle that we ALL must be doing to get
out of this regime. That symbiosis is not new. I had already addressed that long
time ago (see symbiosis, in http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2012/12/simbiosis.html) where the main problem is not to leave the regime but to survive with
it.
But the most serious thing in this particular
moment of the Republic is something that escapes everyone's eyes. Oppositionist
collaborationism in this survival process will reach its climax when, having
"won" the governorships that it pursues, it puts the last nail to the
cross of the Venezuelans by recognizing the fraudulent Constituent of the
regime in exchange for those governors, not won by them but by the confidence
that Venezuelans had when they voted for them. Greater
betrayal will be impossible.
The regime doesn't care about those governors
what it wants is the opposition recognition of its Constituent (see El País “Maduro
transforma las elecciones regionales en un reconocimiento a la constituent” https://elpais.com/internacional/2017/10/12/america/1507779306_002047.html). With that recognition, you'll neutralize anything you've earned. That
which seems clear to the Spaniards of El País, is not so clear to those of us
in Venezuela who are fighting each other over an empty bottle that the regime
has already drunk with Henry Ramos and Julio Borges.
Dear friends, this coming Sunday the fate will
not lie in the outcome of those votes, but in what the opposition leaders who
were given the confidence to solve the problem of Venezuela will do with that
result. If they sell us, both those who voted and those who did not, we will
know what to expect...
Caracas,
October 13,2017
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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