A few days ago I participated in a Dialogue Table at the Venezuelan Engineers Association, replacing the National Coordinator of ANCO, Eng. Enrique Colmenares Finol, who was unable to attend due to commitments outside the country. You can read the speech I gave on that occasion, as always published as this note, in my blog TICs & Human Rights. (see Primaries: ignoring the voice of the people, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/primaries-ignoring-voice-of-people.html). I also posted the respective audio on my social networks as I usually do on these occasions (see in Spanish Primaries: ignoring the voice of the people, Paper by Dr. Luis Manuel Aguana, in https://youtu.be/LmEOf_kBCbY).
The event was organized by the Civil Association Women and Citizenship, with the presence of its main founder, Architect Aixa Armas. It is relevant to mention that the group is an important promoter of the political education of Venezuelans, being for them at this moment part of their work to summon citizens to attend the electoral events that are being called by the official opposition.
Knowing the public position of ANCO in relation to the primaries, I made the comment that perhaps it could be uncomfortable for them to enter into a public discussion on such a controversial issue in an event aimed at promoting the primaries, since for me that would be like mentioning the noose in the house of the hanged man, to which I was told that it would be a respectful debate for people to become aware of the different positions in relation to the issue and that was what was being sought. And that position seemed to me to be of the highest level.
As expected, after my words, which were the first to be presented at this event, there was no delay in the convinced defense of the participation in elections on behalf of the party representatives present: Juan Carlos Vidal, from Primero Justicia, Rosiris Toro, from the group Fuerza Vecinal, both old political leader friends of the Sucre Municipality of Miranda State, as well as the Councilman of the Libertador Municipality, Goyo Caribas, from UNT, who presented their arguments in favor of going to the primaries and the call for elections with the regime in 2024 or earlier.
Unfortunately, the format given to the event did not give the opportunity to respond and debate the arguments presented by the three political leaders and their parties (I was the only speaker to support a contrary position). The meeting was limited to each one presenting his position and listening to the public present; and especially to the neighborhood leaders, expressing their concerns regarding the opposition primaries.
However, since the substance of the issue was not discussed in an event that I thought was to exchange about the appropriateness or not of a primary of the opposition, the act ended up being the opposite, an act of promotion of what I thought was going to be debated. In this sense, I was left with a taste of "not much", as my great friend Blanca Rosa Mármol de León says; and not being able to respond to what was said by the political leaders who participated in the auditorium of the College of Engineers of Venezuela, I take the liberty of doing so belatedly here, with all due respect, and on a bigger stage, the social networks.
I will only consider here the transversal axes that I considered the most important of what was argued by these political representatives, which is not aimed at convincing them whose position has already been taken, but to those who wish to think for themselves -not through someone else's head- whether it makes sense or not to go to an opposition primary -beyond what I stated in my presentation- to finally go again to another electoral contest with the regime of Nicolás Maduro Moros.
As a methodology, I will not personalize each exposition, but the points I considered as the most important arguments of the partisan position in that event:
1.- The opposition has always had better results when it has been measured against the regime in elections in spite of the CNE's cheating. This is proven by the fact that those who exposed themselves triumphed in their municipalities as Councilmen, in places where the ruling party is strong;
2.- We cannot continue with the discourse of "anti-politics" and we must seek the unity of the opposition, since when we have been united in the elections we have won;
3.- In 2006, candidate Rosales lost the elections, according to the figures handled by the campaign command. This cannot be doubted and even less the integrity of that candidate;
4.- In 2012, as well as in 2006, we also lost the elections, according to the figures handled by the opposition parties. There is no doubt about that either;
5.- In 2013, despite the small difference, we also lost and if there had been more time to carry out the campaign, Capriles would have won the elections;
6.- In 2015, by going united, we won with this CNE the Parliamentary elections;
7.- We must all accept that the opposition has made serious mistakes and we must learn from them in order not to make them again. We must leave all that in the past and look to the future.
We could summarize that joint position as follows: "We lost with the regime, but we can win with this CNE in spite of their cheating. We have won city councils, mayorships, and governorships. We can win the presidential elections if we organize ourselves and go united. Let's ignore these negative words, let's wipe the slate clean and look to the future".
This has been, in general terms, the position of the political parties vis-à-vis the citizenship in the face of the regime's fraud and the continuous warnings that we have exposed from the civil society, from an absolutely technical and objective position for many years, in the face of the regime's electoral fraud. I have been tired of writing and giving technical references of this in the years I have been writing on the subject.
There is nothing new in the response of the friends of the panel. The parties still do not want to understand that the regime has NEVER given up any important space of power in Venezuela, and for that it has allowed the opposition forces to impose themselves in places and political positions where its main political project and its fundamental control of the country is not at risk. Such is the case of councils, mayorships and governorships, whose political survival in the eyes of the electorate depends absolutely on the regime in Miraflores.
Unfortunately, the "stone" they always throw at these arguments is that of "anti-politics". In 2012, I wrote that the reason for doing so was because it was considered normal to label as "anti-political" the fact that citizens demand from political parties actions and responsibilities that in any civilized democratic society in the world would be very common, and even considered a duty, and even a right. Now, in today's Venezuela, where the whole world has turned against the political parties for their actions, the response is that those of us who dissent are "anti-political".
Or in other words, the country is insisted on the false belief that a well-founded criticism of the performance of the parties for their behavior can perpetuate the regime; or worse, silence those of us who demand behaviors such as those that precisely led us to it. Then we find ourselves in the worst of all worlds: those of us who do not belong to any party and who, as an organized civil society, demand a better and more transparent performance of the political parties, cannot raise our voices because we are labeled as "anti-politicians", destroyers of democracy and supporters of the regime.
This way of silencing us makes political parties completely ignore many demands considered fair by a large segment of the population, granting them a clear license to do whatever they consider convenient to their interests, which in some very important cases, are very distant from the interests of the majority. This is precisely the case of going to a primary to subsequently endorse an election with Maduro.
My presentation was based on technical data and relevant facts supported by very concrete historical references. The case of Manuel Rosales was masterfully exposed by my late friend Eric Ekvall in 2012, in the video to which I made reference in my exposition, where he indicated the fact that Manuel Rosales and his command were well informed of the results of the pollster Penn, Schoen&Berland, which indicated that eliminating the "fear factor" of the polls that were handled in the country, there was a technical guarantee that NOBODY would win or lose by more than 5 points. However, Chávez miraculously "wins" the elections over Rosales by 27 points, something that was impossible to happen according to Penn, Schoen&Berland, with multinational experience in this type of events. And all this was accepted by the opposition. Did we invent this reality or was it hidden by the opposition?
Something similar or worse happened with Henrique Capriles in 2012. An independent statistical technical report conducted in November 2012, a few days after the Chavez-Capriles election concluded the following: "The inconsistencies found in many voting centers and the magnitude of these inconsistencies imply that the official results of the 7-Oct-2012 elections do not reflect the popular will with statistical certainty” (see in Spànish Report Presidential Election in Venezuela 2012 - Evaluation of the electoral results presented by the CNE, María Mercedes Febres-Cordero and Bernardo Márquez, in https://tinyurl.com/5dem5we5). That is something that is happening in Brazil right now, with machines that are impossible to audit.
The numbers are there for anyone who wants to review them. We did not invent them. Then, why do the parties and their leadership keep insisting that if "people go to vote" we win? What madness is this? It is technically proven to them that regardless of the number of voters who go to the polling stations, the layout and arrangement of the polling stations cause the results to be distorted along the way in cases where the real power in Venezuela is at stake in the election. And still the insistence remains the same. As I indicated in my paper, draw your own conclusions.
The case of the Maduro-Capriles election of April 14, 2013, and its subsequent audit, I analyze in my note of April 18 of that year (see in Spanish Tiby's 12 Thousand Boxes, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2013/04/las-12-mil-cajas-de-tiby.html). As you can see there, the audit proposal presented by the regime was unacceptable and was accepted by the opposition parties.
The CNE chose 12,000 boxes to open WITHOUT THE OPPOSITION PRESENT. Neither the witnesses who were present during the process of those tables, and who put their signatures in those boxes, nor the Venezuelan people participated. The counting was done behind closed doors. They did not open 54% of the boxes whose centers were of only one table -5,577 centers according to the information we handled- which were always, mostly, out of reach of the opposition because they were located in shelters and in highly dangerous areas. What kind of "audit" was that, where the audited chose what was going to be reviewed? And that was accepted by the Capriles Command, please! The thing is that people do not seem to remember and that is what the parties are using to tell everyone to go and vote with a regime managing the electoral power. What can we think about all that? Think...
The case of the 2015 parliamentary elections comes up again. Didn't you find it strange that the results of that election PRECISELY gave us winners in the exact amount of deputies for the qualified majority, with the right number of parliamentarians excluded by the corrupt TSJ of the regime? The CNE stole many more votes than those resulting from that election precisely to do that and send a message to the International Community that there was democracy in Venezuela, keeping the control through the judiciary. The TSJ ended in a second what the citizens decided in that election, in a clear proof that this is indeed not an electoral problem.
The population gave the 2015 deputies a clear mandate to leave the regime. The parties' executions have done the opposite, especially that of Julio Borges' 2017 presidency of the National Assembly, who surrendered the mandate of the citizens of the July 16 Popular Consultation, negotiating with the regime a regional election in December 2017 in exchange for freezing that mandate.
Choosing a candidate to go and measure himself electorally with a regime that is capable of committing all those electoral crimes, without having changed absolutely nothing in the country or in the electoral system, hoping that only an international "observation" will make the difference, is exactly the same as going to war with a nail clipper. They are simply going to kill us.
Indeed, the opposition has made many mistakes, but nowhere do we see any amendment beyond indicating that they will negotiate "better conditions" with the regime, without further explanations. But as Christians say, forgiveness and oblivion for your faults committed are only possible if there is a true purpose of amendment. Only then can there be a future. That judgment can only be in the hands of the owner of the Sovereignty, not of the parties.
We understand the process of choosing an opposition candidate in primaries as the prior acceptance of elections with the regime. It is to accept that the way out of these delinquents will be to measure themselves electorally, keeping themselves in control of the machines to count votes, and this is unacceptable for us. That is why we have proposed that the people should decide, through the Constituent mechanism, what to do with Maduro and his mafia, but with sanctioning pressure and the electoral arbitration of the International Community. Is that "anti-politics" or disdain for the parties? It is just common sense.
My apologies for making this note so long, and I hope that the people who have made it this far, of those who were -or were not- present at the College of Engineers, understand our anguish and our alternative proposal to those elections, primaries and presidential elections. What happens after that will be in God's hands...
Caracas, November 26, 2022
Blog: https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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