“Desguaidoseando” the speech

By Luis Manuel Aguana

First of all, I apologize for the headline, beginning with a word that is not found in the DRAE (Dictionary of the Real Academia Española), but that tries to explain itself: I would like to remove from the speech and analysis the name and the executions of the protagonists of the official opposition and especially that of the main one, Juan Guaidó. Venezuelans always try to explain what happens to us, personalizing the actions with the name of those who for any circumstance occupy the most important political positions. And I think that is logical because if there is something in Venezuela that is taken as very personal, it is power. However, this custom leads us to confuse gymnastics with magnesia. I will try to explain myself better.

Deputy Juan Guaidó Márquez is President in Charge of the Republic because it was he and not another who occupied the position of President of the National Assembly at the time of declaring the absence of the President-Elect of the Republic according to Article 233 of the Constitution. And he still occupies both positions due to an act of political prestidigitation -which I consider unconstitutional- through an Agreement for the Transition that the National Assembly formulated at the time. If the Negro Encarnación, the famous doorkeeper of Acción Democrática, had been there, he would have been the President in Charge of the Republic. And although I personally consider that perhaps the Negro would have done better, I must accept (we will see later if the verb is the most appropriate) that Venezuelans have A LEGITIMATE PRESIDENT who has a responsibility to fulfill before us, regardless of who he is called or who he is. That is, we must separate the variable from the content of the variable.

We Venezuelans have been wrong in the past to elect the President. The last valid opportunity we had was wasted when we elected coup plotter Hugo Chávez Frías in 1998. We have paid for that mistake and we continue to pay dearly, but there is no doubt that the mechanism, procedure and forms provided for in the Constitution of that time were fully complied with.

But Venezuelans DO NOT ELECT JUAN GUAIDO MARQUEZ. He was just there. As I indicated, he was the person whom the constitution imposed to lead a transition that would lead to the convocation of elections to restore the constitutional thread. Is that what the President in Charge has done so far? Let us continue.

It could be said that the President-in-Office has mistakenly dedicated himself to "governing" over what he has no competence. We could ask the legitimate TSJ for an interpretation of Article 233, but as Venezuelan I have the right to interpret the spirit in which that Article was drafted, precisely on the subject at hand: "When the absolute absence of the President-elect or President-elect occurs before taking office, a new universal, direct and secret election shall be held within thirty consecutive days. While the new President is being elected and takes office, the President of the National Assembly shall be in charge of the Presidency of the Republic...".

That "as long as one chooses and takes possession" has lengthened beyond what the Constituent could ever imagine. Anyone could think, as I do, that the only concern of the President in Charge should be the holding of those elections, not only because those "30 consecutive days" indicated in Article 233 of the Constitution passed, but for more than 8 months. Otherwise, the presence of a President-in-Office would not be justified. And if the incumbent does not or does not take as an extreme priority what the Constitution tells him, then we Venezuelans must begin to think about replacing him with someone who really does.

Note that I'm not personalizing the situation here. It seems that the President-in-Office has not assumed that in that position he is solely responsible, not the parties that put him up and co-govern with him. HE IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE. That's why Venezuelans have dedicated themselves to destroying the person of Juan Guaidó Márquez through social networks, and as a consequence their numbers in the polls have dropped rapidly. That's why I've always thought it's necessary to "scrap" the speech. It is an issue of political responsibility with a people THAT HAS THE PRESIDENT IN CHARGE.

Unfortunately, the President in Charge has also believed his own popularity. He has done things that affect his position and credibility. In my opinion, the most notorious example is the creation of an "Office of the First Lady," an instance that everyone wonders in which that office helps accelerate the expected change with those elections, beyond giving a position to his wife. Those are the things that show an important deviation from the goals set when he took office as President in Charge on January 23.

But the most important thing is the serious deviation that has been given to the three-step mantra, "Cessation of Usurpation-Transitional Government-Free Elections," in that order, which all Venezuelans approved after Guaidó took office. The President in Charge has dismissed the mantra that they themselves approved in the National Assembly and sought to negotiate with the regime an election without going through a Transitional Government. The mantra has not been repealed and the main responsible for its fulfillment is the President in Charge.

A group of Venezuelans have formally proposed to the President a Constitutional way to solve the problem of the "Cessation of the Usurpation" of Nicolás Maduro Moros, through a Popular Plebiscite Consultation (see in Spanish, ANCO rechaza acuerdos de cohabitación con el régimen y propone la gran Consulta Popular Plebiscitaria, in http://ancoficial.blogspot.com/2019/09/comunicado-anco-anco-rechaza-acuerdos_20.html). It is possible that there are other ways to reach this "Cessation of Usurpation", and that the President in Charge is empowered to study. But what he cannot avoid is his obligation to give an immediate response to the country of the obligation he assumed, and time is not in his favor. We are offering him on a silver platter a solution from which he and all Venezuelans will directly benefit, if he assumes his personal responsibility as President in Charge....

In Venezuela, the regime blurred the rule of law and the Constitution has ceased to be in force, so Venezuelans are in the mode of CONSTITUTIONAL RESTORATION, according to Article 333 . That is, "every citizen invested or citizen invested or not invested with authority, shall have the duty to collaborate in the re-establishment of its effective validity". We have collaborated by offering a constitutional solution because we are all responsible for repairing the Popular Sovereignty that the regime has violated. But it doesn't stop there. The Constitution gives all Venezuelans the right to exercise our sovereignty directly (Article 5) through the means that the Constitution itself grants us (Article 70) WITHOUT PASSING THROUGH PUBLIC POWERS. The interception of the exercise of our sovereignty repeatedly exhibited by those who claim to represent the interests of Venezuelans cannot be sustained permanently....

Caracas, September 25, 2019

Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana

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