By Luis Manuel Aguana
Intervention in the Roundtable of Analysis of the Pío Tamayo Chair on
December 2, 2019.
Once
again I would like to thank the Pío Tamayo Chair and the tireless Prof. Agustín
Blanco Muñoz for this new invitation to debate Venezuela. Never as now is there
a need for reflection, discussion and debate about the direction the country is
taking. The work that this Chair has carried out for decades makes it an
indisputable reference when it comes to making decisions. I wish that the
political leadership would take into account what is discussed in this
classroom in the Pío Tamayo Chair. Perhaps the results would be different from
those we now perceive in the country.
On this
occasion, the Pio Tamayo Chair brings us to an Analysis Roundtable with a topic
of special relevance: "Balance of 2019 A lost year? What awaits us in
2020?" What a discussion! Evaluate what has been done, giving a rating,
and predict what will come. Thank God I am here, accompanied by extraordinary
teachers in politics, starting with Prof. Blanco Muñoz, who could evaluate this
exam much better than me. I must begin by defining who is evaluated, in order
to be able to respond effectively if their actions led to the loss of a year,
if indeed that was the case, of the life of the country, understanding that
what is referred to in the question of the lost year formulated by the Chair,
is whether all Venezuelans lost a year in getting rid of this regime, so that
the object of the evaluation must refer to those who had the responsibility before
us to do so.
In this
way, I define for the purposes of my presentation, that those examined today in
this classroom are those who integrate what I have consistently called the
official opposition, that is to say, those characters who, belonging to the
so-called opposition political parties, were elected in responsibilities of
political representation of the Venezuelan people, and their leaders are
recognized outside and inside the country as those responsible for the
decisions taken in representation of the Venezuelan population that rejects the
regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros.
And
whether we like it or not, it is the official opposition that decides for us
the course that the country's opposition struggle should take against what we
have considered a regime responsible for dismantling the system of freedoms and
the institutionality of the Republic. It could be said that the official
opposition is made up of all the members so called in the National Assembly,
made up of the parties that call themselves opponents and that live there.
Once the
evaluated person has been established, I will also define the object of the
evaluation. Given the broad spectrum of topics on which to evaluate the
management of a year of the opposition struggle - which are multiple - I will
only evaluate on those topics to which I warned in my last note of the year
2018, published on December 31 of that year (see For an effective leadership in
2019, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/for-effective-leadership-in-2019_31.html)
and which is summarized in five
fundamental aspects on which the credibility of any leadership should be based
in order to have the moral qualification to lead this struggle.
I didn't
invent these aspects. They were suggested by Victor Lipman, world-renowned
leadership specialist, contributor to Forbes Magazine and Harvard Business
Review, in an article published in March 2018, entitled “5 Time-Tested Ways To Build Leadership Credibility (see in https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2018/03/24/5-time-tested-ways-to-build-leadership-credibility/#3ac678a73fa8) and which I will
summarize below for the evaluation.
However, I must mention first, for the purposes of this examination held
on 31 December last, with sufficient anticipation for the answers to be
outstanding, that it was necessary for the new leadership that assumed the
reins of the official opposition in the new year that was beginning,
represented by these young people, to take these considerations into account
because 2019 would be strongly marked by their decisions in the opposition
leadership of the country. And
I was not mistaken.
I was
extremely concerned that many of these young politicians would not have had any
real professional work experience, without a boss from whom they would have
learned, before engaging in politics. They suddenly entered the university
struggles of the street, the National Assembly, mayors and other positions of
responsibility without first having gone through the forging that only gives
the touch of professional training after a university.
That
said, highlight the 5 aspects of building Lipman's leadership credibility,
which we will then evaluate:
1.- Deliver results. On December 31, 2018, it
was said that none of these boys would earn a credible position in public
opinion if they did not present results. We are still waiting for the results
of the Cessation of Usurpation after 11 months. Only for not having delivered
results to the Venezuelans, the evaluated one is reprobated in this first
aspect.
2.- Transparency. As Lipman said "Do you want credibility?
You have to be honest with people...". Were the young people responsible
for the official opposition sincere with the people? Definitely NO. The events
of February 23 and April 30, 2019 openly demonstrate this. Instead of leaving
the regime first, they tried to negotiate with him in a Dialogue Table in
Norway and then in Barbados, and now they have decided to go to an election
with Maduro in power. In this
second aspect the evaluated one is reproved.
3.- Don't avoid difficult decisions. I said in that note that
the whole of 2019 would be extremely difficult but that the worst thing they
could do was avoid difficult decisions and not face them, even if it cost them
their freedom. Well, they did the opposite. They avoided at all costs, not even
discussing in Parliament, transcendental decisions such as the approval of Article
187, Numeral 11 that gave the authorization to the countries that wanted it,
the military accompaniment of the humanitarian aid necessary for Venezuelans. In this third aspect the evaluated one is
reprobated.
4.- Demonstrate consistency in your behavior. Ask
yourselves if the official opposition has behaved consistently. That is, if you
have kept the word pawned. Answer: a resounding no. This is demonstrated by the
October 1st Agreement of the National Assembly where they announced a new route
that disappeared the trilogy announced on January 23, "Cessation of
Usurpation - Transitional Government-Free Elections". In this fourth aspect the evaluated is reprobated.
5.- Guide with the example. I said at this point last
year that people would not believe in anyone who did not give the example.
However, the allegations of corruption were hidden, being conducted in exactly
the same way as the Maduro and Chavez regimes. With the bursting of the
Cucutazo corruption pot, the recent denunciations of the former Ambassador
appointed by the Government in Charge in Colombia, Humberto Calderón Berti,
about the irregular handling of the official opposition parties in the
appointment of the executives in Monómeros Colombo-Venezolanos, S.A., and now
the advanced corruption scandals in the Comptrollership Commission of the
National Assembly, publicly exposed in the Armando.info portal. (see in Spanish ¿Necesita lavar su
reputación? Se alquilan diputados para tal fin, en https://armando.info/Reportajes/Details/2614), It is relieved of all
evidence that Venezuelans are with the official opposition to exactly the same
"musiú with different cachimbo" as it was stylized in the past, that
is, the regime and its opposition are the same, with all that that implies.
Needless to say, in this fifth and final aspect, the person being evaluated is
more than disapproved.
Having
failed the leadership of the official opposition in this fundamental matter
which is the credibility of leadership, what is left for the rest? Anything
they try to do, even a charity like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, will be doomed
to failure because it will not have the backing of Venezuelans.
To the
question, was 2019 a lost year? Indeed, after the evaluation of each of the 5
objective aspects that were warned well in advance, we Venezuelans lost the
year 2019. On the contrary, it means an effective advance for the regime, since
it can sustain itself one more year in power. Now, what does 2020 have in store for us?
Venezuelans
don't have it easy in 2020. Demonstrated as it is that we are facing a monster
that is not only outside but also inside our home, we must then close ranks
around what we have as safe. I am not going to mention here the names of
valuable Venezuelans, not only in the field of politics but especially in that
of civil society - inside and outside the country - who have warned of the need
to gather urgently around leaders who effectively represent those of us who
urgently want to get out of this problem. You know them. The realignment of the
country around these characters is a vital necessity for freedom, and anything
that must be done to place them in the immediate future in the line of succession
and constitutional power as protagonists of a new stage of the opposition
struggle for the recovery of freedom in 2020, is completely mandatory.
In this
sense, proposals such as the Popular Plebiscite Consultation of Venezuelans
with the designation of a Council of Government of National Unity, with the
incorporation of sectors of Civil Society by direct means, or the consultation
for the convocation of the Original Constituent as is being proposed in Chile,
are solutions proposed by the Original National Constituent Alliance, ANCO, and
that must be urgently reviewed with the corresponding seriousness by all
Venezuelans.
In the
renewal of the opposition leadership is the key not to lose also next year and
those who come after. I will not ask for more reflection from the parties of an
official opposition that, from an opposition Comptroller's Commission, issued
certificates of good conduct to the criminals of the regime who trade with the
hunger of our people. If we citizens do not undertake the struggle to
immediately change the political leadership of the Venezuelan opposition,
starting with Juan Guaidó, through the mechanisms guaranteed to us by the
Constitution, the year 2020 will definitely be worse…
Thank you very much...
Caracas, December 2, 2019
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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