Guaidó versus official opposition

By Luis Manuel Aguana

I have a dear friend, an extraordinary political analyst, who is really convinced that Juan Guaidó is a fraud. Yes, a fraud that has deceived us all and will end up being another disappointment for Venezuelans. I have replied to that statement that if that is so and he is right then the last one to come out that turns off the light of Venezuela (it seems that something of that is happening with the blackout of the country on March 7 and 8). But if we want to be objective, I have to accept that Guaidó has accompanied the G4 in the approval of the unconstitutional Statute for Transition that hijacks the constitutional powers of the President of the Republic, has willingly accepted the chimbo appointment of Ambassadors without diplomatic experience, has accompanied the non-approval of the use of foreign military missions in the country for the entry of Humanitarian Aid, etc., etc., etc. Many errors that make anyone doubt.

But there's something deep down that tells me my friend is wrong. I don't know if because as a Venezuelan I feel that of all the opportunities we've had this is the closest, and that we can succeed in getting rid of this plague that took over Venezuela. I want out of necessity to believe that this 35-year-old boy - and I don't say this disparagingly since he may be my son - must have by construction the gene for change in his DNA, having the great, enormous opportunity to introduce us as a society into the 21st century as Eleazar López Contreras did with Venezuelan society in 1935 of the 20th century.

Juan Guaidó was just a 16 year old boy when he was affected by Vargas in December 1999. He could not even have voted for the current Constitution that was decided under that water stick. He could neither know nor understand at that moment what the last years of the political disaster that brought Hugo Chavez, nor his 4F 1992 coup insurgency meant when Guaidó was only 9 years old. It is by no means a bridge between the fourth-republican past and the madurist present.

He is a rare mixture of a youth that by family contact knows what happened but did not live what many Venezuelans experienced from the "ta'barato dame dos", nor from the Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho Scholarship Plan, because that had to be lived. That youth if they want to get out of this for something new but they don't know it for sure because it has to be made from scratch, and the best thing they have at hand as experience is represented by that opposition species that still survives in the National Assembly, with specimens like Henry Ramos Allup, Omar Barboza, Edgar Zambrano and the rest of the " próceres de la cuarta " who had in their opportunity the real power to change Venezuela in the years of democracy and they didn't do it. These people are like insects that survived an atomic explosion and now see the opportunity to return. We can't let that happen because those kids don't have the right experience and they didn't live what we do if we live from the decisions that those people made that brought the plague of Hugo Chavez.

And I can say with propriety, like many of us who witnessed those years, that those people are in no way a political example for Guaidó or for any other boy in politics today. It's as if Lopez Contreras had visualized a new country with the gomecist paradigm, but worse, because they didn't live it. López lived as Minister during the years of Juan Vicente Gómez and knew with much better certainty where to lead the country.

So the kind of Juan Guaidó is "kidnapped" like many other young people, by that herd of old people may be possible by that inexperience, but I place my greatest confidence in them because that generation has no alternative but to end that claque on pain of sinking all. The castro-chavismo-madurismo has not just died, but neither has the new place to take the country been born. The nefarious influence of groups such as AD and UNT (which are basically the same), the greatest exponents of that past and those directly responsible for Chávez's appearance, has set the stage for a struggle to define a new political panorama for Venezuela. Will Juan Guaidó be crouched in that to return to a Venezuela he did not know, where AD, as a regressive factor in politics, is the main actor above the rest? I don't believe it. If that is so, it would be suicidal for Venezuelans. And the fastest way for the Chavistas to return to power after the transition. Beware of that!

For some intuitive reason I don't see that new political youth or Guaidó in that plan, despite all the indications to the contrary. I see some inexperienced young people committing serious errors like those of the 23F where a group of "boy scouts" tried to bring humanitarian aid to the country without foreign military custody, or try to end the usurpation without expressly approving the presence of foreign military in the country from the National Assembly. That inexperience and stubbornness could cost us hundreds of lives in Venezuela. It is already happening.

There, I see the hairy hand of that official opposition of the G4 that wants the failure of the young Guaidó and lets him make a mistake, even suggesting those strategies, because they don't want the young Guaidó to go from the 30 days indicated in the Transition Statute, going directly to an election that can't be held in that time, without going through a real Transition Government, BECAUSE THEY WANT TO DO THAT TRANSITION and with the candidates that have already been announced. They want Guaidó to play a disposable role for their purposes. Nowhere does the most rancid part of that fourth-republican political clique that is in the National Assembly want Guaidó to fully exercise his constitutional competencies as President in Charge right now and even less for more than 30 days, even if they have to use that same CNE castro-chavista-madurista. That is why it is the accelerator of the Rectors of the CNE.

But they don't have a choice. What has happened inside and outside Venezuela since the 23rd has been decisive. Guaidó is a political phenomenon that they cannot get rid of and they are condemned to make that Transition with Guaidó at the head because it is Guaidó whom the International Community has recognized and the Venezuelan people want as President in Charge for that Transition. Guaidó has become a phenomenon that they will hardly be able to put aside without a cost that is difficult to assume. The ONLY way for that Transitional Government to succeed is for Juan Guaidó to exercise it fully after the "cessation of usurpation". It is not possible to make a new election as they intend to do without a major institutional change of the CNE, accelerating the appointment of new Rectors and without structurally changing the Electoral Power, as I explained in my previous note. (see It’s not the Rectors, it’s the System, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/its-not-rectors-its-system.html).

And that's what I think President In Charge Juan Guaidó is patiently waiting for. Once the first phase of the trilogy, "cessation of usurpation," is complete, Guaidó will have the freedom to fix with the right people all the wrongs of the beginning product of pairing with the factors of the G4. It would be a Guaidó versus official opposition in a cunning and covert manner where the one who has more endurance wins. If he resists and moves politically well, he will be able to intelligently separate himself from those who want his failure, and by neutralizing them he will be able to mark a new beginning. But he must listen outside the circle that surrounds him, and especially to the people he knows, and decide for himself and his intuition, not for what the dinosaurs tell him. We all want his success and his worst enemies have them by his side.

If Juan Guaidó succeeds in starting a new Transitional Government without surrendering it to the nefarious influence of the fourth-republicanism, Venezuela could have the golden opportunity of a transition as a true entrance to the 21st Century, as the Venezuelans had it in 1935, from the hands of Eleazar López Contreras, and not as an extension of the worst of the end of the 20th Century. Will Juan Guaidó, a faithful exponent of that youth who died in the streets for a better Venezuela, be able to betray that in favor of the worst of Venezuelan politics of the last 60 years, and who is still alive and kicking in that National Assembly? If he is capable of that betrayal, my dear friend would have been right and I would have been wrong again - it is not the first time - but I would have done so believing in the Venezuelan youth who have shed so much blood for Venezuela....

Caracas, March 8, 2018

Twitter:@laguana

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario