By
Luis Manuel Aguana
For
those of you who may think that I will entangle myself in the
technical analysis of what happened on Sunday, December 9, I will
tell you that I will not go any further than to affirm that the same
thing that has always happened in all the electoral processes in
Venezuela since the regime put the automated voting system into
operation: after the closing of the process, the milling of the
numbers started again, and a participation that at the closing of the
tables at 6:00pm was at 11.16%, with the consequent historical
abstention of 88.84%, according to a serious pollster (see
in Spanish
Meganalisis
https://twitter.com/Meganalisis/status/1071890817948770304),
the regime's CNE turned it into a matter of minutes to 27.4% (see
in Spanish
El Nacional
http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/politica/cne-anuncio-que-participacion-fue-274-elecciones-municipales_262777).
Tiby's
little machines once again did the dirty and fraudulent work of the
regime by extending participation more than twice, to the
astonishment of all Venezuelans who saw live and directly the
deserted voting centers throughout the country through the photos and
videos that circulated profusely on social networks.
But
what I want to highlight as relevant in this new election day is that
the Venezuelan people, including pro-government supporters, finally
understood that the vote has no meaning in the midst of tyranny. That
the current dictatorial vote makes no difference in the quality of
life of citizens. That this fallacy of "preserving spaces"
has been useless when the regime only allows itself to be "won"
if its stability is not at risk.
We
have not been those who have warned for many years that Tiby's
automated electoral system works like an arranged roulette where only
the "house" of the regime wins and loses when it wants, but
rather it has been the Venezuelan people who have been disillusioned
alone and their social response to that situation has been that
gigantic abstention on Sunday, December 9.
We
have said it before and we repeat it now: you can not return to the
polls without an electoral system that guarantees Authentic
Elections. That message has gradually but deeply penetrated the minds
of Venezuelans for quite some time, to the point of having reached
these levels of non-participation. It could be said that this is a
citizen's awareness.
We
explain it in detail in the document of the Indefinite Electoral
Strike (see
in Spanish
Apoya la Huelga Electoral Indefinida, en
https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/apoya-la-huelga-electoral-indefinida-en-venezuela.html)
which we called before those fraudulently called elections as we
explained at length there, and which we will continue to call after
December 9 and until we are restored the right to choose
transparently and authentically, as we are entitled to under all the
human rights treaties signed by Venezuela.
However,
this citizen awareness is not interpreted as such by the official
opposition parties that still insist on continuing to play the
elections with the dictatorship, and demonizing anyone who dares to
disagree with going over and over again to that arranged roulette.
They did not yet understand what happened. But we have come to the
end. That speech has been exhausted. They have yet to tell us
something more than "we have to preserve the spaces" to
convince people that by going to vote things will change.
They
will now be forced to go deeper into what happened with the voters,
trying to understand the reasons why the phenomenon is occurring, and
make decisions that will change the outcome of that equation. The
citizen's call for political leadership is clear, and from now on
instead of "blaming" the citizen they will have to see
themselves in a mirror to find those truly responsible for that
situation and find solutions.
Citizens
have already reached the necessary level of citizen awareness,
ignoring those who have persistently deceived them. At this point, it
is now necessary to go to the next level that I call the recognition
of relevant
leadership.
The
municipal level is the level closest to the citizen. Mayors and
Councillors are the officials who directly deal with the day-to-day
problems of communities, and from which people's quality of life
derives. If in that context there is no real citizen representation
that responds to people's real problems, citizens will never see
their aspirations to live better satisfied. And no matter how
efficient a mayor or councilman may be, if his interests respond to
something other than the interests of the people of the place where
they live, the problems of that community will never be solved.
If
the election system is dominated by a leadership that does not
respond to the neighbors who live in the communities but to the
interest of the political groups interested only in putting hands on
a budget of municipal works to finance their partisan operations, or
traffic with permits, then that distortion or failure of the system,
provokes by construction an immediate rejection capable of dividing
society. The municipalities are essentially the level of the people,
of the civil society. Mayors and Councilmen must come from the civil
society that organizationally occupy those positions of close citizen
representation from the heart of their communities with the pertinent
leadership, leaving to the political sector the regional level,
Governors of States, and Deputies to the Legislative Assemblies.
This
is part of our proposal within the Proyecto
Paś Venezuela
promoted by the National Constituent Alliance (ANCO), in its second
axis, El Municipio Fuerte. (see
in Spanish,
Doce Ejes y un Destino: 2) El Municipio Fuerte, en
http://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2013/07/doce-ejes-y-un-destino-2-el-municipio.html)
and which is accompanied by an immediate conversion of all the
Parishes of the country to Municipalities, in a first stage, with
political, administrative, fiscal, and financial independence, as
well as with autonomy in matters of health, education, and security
for the Municipalities. All this must be discussed in the heart of an
Original Constituent, which must be summoned to debate and
reconstruct the country institutionally after this
castro-chavista-madurista tragedy.
So,
seen this way, does an election of Councillors or Mayors under the
current system make a difference? Would it improve the quality of
life of citizens after this election, if the councillors of the
official opposition had won? Obviously not. Even if we get out of the
dictatorship, the system is useless. Then the 9D did not lose nor did
we gain anything. The Municipalities and their Municipal Chambers
will continue to be the closed preserve of the political parties,
without any possibility that the citizens will be the ones to watch
over what happens in their own space, and where their lives unfold.
And until that does not change the citizens will not see improvements
by what happens in a municipal election.
It
is not strange, then, that now, and given the dictatorship's control
of what happens in each community, the citizens are the weakest and
defenseless link in this chain, but at the same time their last
defense against two predators, the regime on the one hand wanting to
put its hand on the last redoubt of the citizens, and on the other
hand, the official opposition that refuses to die trying to preserve
the only means of financial subsistence that remains in the
municipalities because they are not a government. And along that path
they will never be.
But
now we face a much greater challenge than regaining people's
credibility in the electoral system: either the parties change when
the dictatorship falls, giving citizens control of their communities,
or we will never see a participation that represents the true
feelings of the people because the citizens have already become aware
of the problem, and consequently democracy will never work in
Venezuela. They have no other alternative because if they don't, they
will disappear...
Caracas,
December 12, 2018
Email:
luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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