In spite of all the years dedicated in some way to influence Venezuelan politics in order to bring about a change in the paradigm of power in our country, I must admit, not without some disappointment, how little we have been able to explain to the population how the Constituent Assembly process should be carried out in Venezuela. Perhaps it is a problem in the way we have tried to get the message across, the way of putting it forward, the channels used, or the consistent lack of resources that has accompanied us since we started this crusade many years ago, to be able to carry out a full-fledged communication campaign to explain to Venezuelans how to approach the problem.
The truth is that to this day I still meet people who still ask us how we would carry out this constituent process, since we clearly have some criminals in power in Venezuela, and they will hardly abandon it just because the people order them to do so. We are not dealing with politicians, as those who make political opposition in Venezuela want to keep insisting, convincing the International Community to go to elections with criminals in power.
There are two important considerations that must be taken into account in this explanation that are defining to give a clear answer to Venezuelans about how to carry out this constituent process: a) no explanation for this issue fits in a Twitter message (no matter how many threads it is intended to be given); and b) the answer is and has been dynamic, and consequently different in every political moment we have had in Venezuela.
The first consideration points to the communicational fact itself. Venezuelans want quick and short answers to complex problems. And if it has already been difficult to explain why it is necessary to go to a Constituent process, the next question is how we do it. And there we enter the second consideration. The answer has been different since we started the crusade long before the founding of ANCO in March 2016.
We could not in any way found the National Original Constituent Alliance, ANCO, without telling the country HOW we were going to carry out such a complex process and with whom we were going to do it. In fact, the organizational base had to begin to be built from that moment on. And what was the theoretical support for the launching of ANCO, which explained the how and its foundations? The document entitled "Constituent Bases, Citizens' Proposal for Reconciliation and Change" whose latest version was published on November 26, 2017 (see in Spanish the complete Constituent Bases Document, in https://tinyurl.com/8vjaccvu). The Constituent Bases extensively include the Bases Comiciales of the entire process (how the constituent elections would be held and on what basis).
You will find a detailed explanation of how we would do that process in my note titled " Constituent Bases " of February 22, 2017 (see in Spanish Constituent Bases, at https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/02/bases-constituyentes.html), however, I will tell you in advance: What is this document about? Based on our right to political participation enshrined in the Constitution, a group of Venezuelans drafted a manifesto for history called Bases Constituyentes, where those who subscribe to it -called Activators- we constitute ourselves throughout the country in Juntas Activadoras del Poder Constituyente Originario (JAPCOs), whose mission has three fundamental objectives: 1) To collect the manifestations of will of 15% of the Civil and Electoral Registry throughout the country (Article 348); 2) Having reached and surpassed that constitutional minimum of 15%, to proceed to call for a Constituent Process of an Original character; 3) To be in the disposition to defend the will of the people to call for a National Constituent Assembly over any disregard made by the Constituted Power to the Original Constituent Power.
AT THAT TIME, prior to the regime's illegitimate call for a Constituent Assembly on May 1, 2017, our HOW was (and still is) based on our constitutional right to political participation, exercising it over the constituted powers, and convincing all political factors, including the Armed Forces, to respect the outcome of that unprecedented process.
However, the political situation of the country CHANGED radically as of May 1, 2017. The repudiation of the country to that illegitimate constituent of the regime stopped in its tracks our initiative to raise the 15% required to call a Constituent by popular initiative and forced us to a change in the strategy towards a Popular Consultation (see my intervention with the JAPCOs of ANCO in Anzoátegui, in Constituyente Originaria versus fraude constitucional, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/05/constituyente-originaria-versus-fraude.html) so that Venezuelans would be the ones to decide the destiny of Venezuela, without abandoning the struggle for an Original Constituent that would change the bases of power in our country (see my note of May 20, 2017, La lucha por una Constituyente Originaria debe continuar, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/05/la-lucha-por-una-constituyente.html). In this note I explain in detail why the 1999 Constitution must be changed through a Constituent process. ANCO's strategy of initiating the consultative effort without the public powers, led to the execution of the two Popular Consultations in 2017 and 2020, and established the necessary popular mandates for what will happen in Venezuela in the process of the recovery of freedom.
After these Popular Consultations whose mandates have been ignored by the regime, but even worse by the political opposition, we return to our principled struggle for the convocation of the Original Constituent, but taking into account that the political reality of the country is now completely different. Since 2017, the regime has strengthened its structures bringing as a consequence an exponential destruction of the physical plant -and the moral reserve- of the country, with the consequent exodus of more than 6 million people, considerable increase in political persecution and economic ruin of the country, all this without counting a dreadful pandemic that has swept Venezuela plunging it even deeper into the misery of the regime. This country is not the same in 2022 as it was in 2017. The same political conditions do not exist, so the same methodologies and solutions that we once wielded in the Constituent Bases cannot be applied to try to impose a mandate that arises from the popular decision.
Then the approach must be different, maintaining our proposal to call for a Constituent Assembly, but through a different process than the one proposed until May 2017. And it is there where we must sharpen our political creativity. Between the two Popular Consultations of 2017 and 2020 there is already a valid and binding mandate to: a) Order the change of the Public Powers; b) Demand the Cessation of the Usurpation of Nicolás Maduro Moros prior to any call for elections; and c) The obligation to "... advance the necessary steps before the international community to activate cooperation, accompaniment and assistance to rescue our democracy, address the humanitarian crisis and protect the people from crimes against humanity".
With these three elements we can affirm without a doubt that not only ANCO, but all Venezuelans, have the necessary support ordered by popular mandate by the Venezuelan people in two Popular Consultations, to present before the International Community, a constitutional, peaceful and essentially electoral process (without the participation of any public power of the regime) such as a National Constituent Assembly, which will lead us to an election of Constituents, as opposed to presidential and parliamentary elections proposed by the official opposition as a solution to the Venezuelan problem.
In this way, we raise the Constituent proposal to another level, but not without leaving aside what we have to do for this proposal to become a reality. That is, if the International Community understands that all the structures of the Venezuelan State must be changed in order to get out of the terminal crisis in which we find ourselves, and among its observations is that all Venezuelans must sign so that this becomes a reality, then we will devise a way for all Venezuelans here and the rest of the planet to sign for this solution.
But if it is considered that for there to be peace in Venezuela, a four-party political negotiation, an Ad Hoc Electoral Tribunal (specially arranged for that purpose) outside the structures of the regime, between the International Community, the political parties, the civil society and the regime for a constituent election from whose results a Transitional Government will emerge as a result of the decision of some legitimate constituents, with a set of Electoral Bases discussed among all those involved, then that will be the path of that constituent HOW. In my opinion, it is not possible to think of going to collect signatures right now without BEFORE this is decided in a political negotiation process that includes all parties.
I am not talking about something unreal. The call for an Original National Constituent Assembly is still our desideratum to organize and Refound the Nation. But the vast majority of all Venezuelans must be convinced of that. In all the years that I have been studying and writing about this process, I have never been more convinced that it will necessarily have to go through a POLITICAL NEGOTIATION INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY as I recently explained in my recent note (see Refoundation of the Nation in wartime, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/refoundation-of-nation-in-wartime.html).. But for that to happen we will have to have on our side the great majority of all Venezuelans who aspire to a radical change in our country. Hence the strength that we will have to have in organization and popular penetration to convince the citizens that this is the last and only way to go politically to get out of this problem without killing each other. I hope to God that this will be so...
Caracas, March 3, 2022
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