I was attracted by a brief questionnaire made through social networks to those of us who promoted the call for the Constituent Assembly to initiate the Refoundation of the Nation, and I believe that it should be explained (and/or answered) to better understand the mistaken perception that the common people have about this process:
"Questions for ANCO
1. Why should a new Constitution be reformed or created.
2. Which articles of the Constitution do you think should be reformed or eliminated?
3. How many Principal and Substitute members should the proposed new Constituent Assembly have.
4. In what year and in what month the ANC should be appointed.
5. How long the ANC should be in effect.
I would like the proponents and organizers of this political and constitutional initiative to answer these questions that are of interest to the citizens".
Although these questions were asked to ANCO, respecting that this is an institution that has dedicated many years to the call for the Original Constituent Power, I will not answer for them but will do so, as I have always done in this blog, reflecting my own opinions (not those of ANCO, because it expresses its own through its communiqués) and what this server has written in the years that it has been supporting this initiative of that civil society organization.
I will not make this text more bulky than necessary and in some cases I will point out to the readers where they can easily find the answer to some of these questions, focusing on those that I do believe must be clarified at this political moment in Venezuela. The first question I specifically answered almost 5 years ago in a note titled "The struggle for an Original Constituent must continue" (see note in Spanish, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2017/05/la-lucha-por-una-constituyente.html). In that note, which has not lost its validity, I explain in due detail why we must have a Constituent Assembly and write a new Constitution for Venezuela, so I will move on to the next question which is really the reason for this note..
Some people who have known ANCO's approach have the wrong perception that the problem we are raising is a facial change of the 1999 Constitution. That is, changing articles or adding and/or eliminating some existing ones. And that is NOT SO. What we are talking about is to change the political, economic and social model of the country! And that clearly entails to redo everything that is written in the Constitution to adapt it to a new model that is being proposed to Venezuelans.
This is the origin of most of the resistance and criticism that has been made to this project since a very qualified group of Venezuelans formulated it more than 15 years ago. In June 2014 I explained it in detail using a very harsh comparison: the transformation of a garbage dump into a garden with a mansion where we would all live (see in Spanish, From Project to Movement, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/2014/06/de-proyecto-movimiento.html). The update of this Project is written in black and white in the document The Big Change published by ANCO on its web site (see in Spanish, The Big Change, A Proposal for the Refoundation of Venezuela, in https://ancoficial.blogspot.com/p/documentos-fundamentales.html).
The Constitution is the fundamental pact that governs the relations between the governors and the governed of a country. It establishes the organization of the State and the duties and rights of citizens in a territory. The Constitution defines our economic and political model, establishing the framework for relations between citizens. All our constitutions since the famous Constitution of Angostura of 1819 have defined the centralized role of the State vis-à-vis the citizens, breaking in practice the federal sense with which Venezuela was founded in 1811.
Since Angostura, and despite the justification of the freezing of the federation in favor of a centralized State established in 1811, for reasons of the War of Independence, Venezuela still preserves in the structure of its fundamental text the model of a State administrator who gives and a passive citizen who receives. A State that decides the final fate of its citizens. Regions that depend economically on an all-powerful administrator, even if they can elect their political representation in the States and Municipalities, in a Constitutional Situation established by Public Powers that decide centrally on the life and death of the regions of the country.
This pyramidal model has not changed in more than 200 years of republican history and has deepened since the State became rich with the oil income at the beginning of the 20th century. And this is structurally defined in all our constitutions since 1819. It is not a question of changing one or another article of the Magna Carta. It is a matter of redefining the structure of power, inverting the pyramid of State administration in favor of the citizens, returning to the federation with which the Republic was founded in 1811.
The constitutional structure of the State that has prevailed since 1819 is what needs to be changed, handing over political power until now centralized to the 23 regions of the country, and these in turn to the municipalities, which is ultimately where the citizen resides. The current structure benefits the few who come to power and control the State and its resources. Hence, the parties fight to the death to attain that power and organize themselves to control those who reach parliament, which is where the resources that are distributed are finally decided, in combination with who occupies Miraflores. The Deputies currently elected are not true representatives of the regions, but of the parties that nominate them. This is part of the political change that must take place as a consequence of the change in the proposed constitutional structure that leads the country to a truly Federal and decentralized State. Had we had a distributed power structure such as the one we are proposing, it would have been impossible for a single party and its felon President to plunder and destroy our country as they have done.
With the passing of time and the end of the War of Independence, the federal character of the Republic was recognized, but without those who governed losing centralized control of the State. The Constitution of 1830 established a system that combined both but always left the regions in the hands of whoever controlled the central power. This occurred until there was an important change in the constitutional text at the end of the Federal War with the Constitution of 1864, which created the States as we know them today, to the point that Venezuela took the name of United States of Venezuela (see in Spanish Irene Loreto González, Federalism as a political system, in http://historiaconstitucionalvenezuela.blogspot.com/2010/06/federalismo-como-sistema-politico.html).
From then on, the constitutional structure has remained unchanged to this day. Even the 1999 Constitution centralized the model much more, eliminating the representation of the States in the parliament, leaving the regions totally orphaned. It is this discussion that we Venezuelans must address without further delay if we wish to give our offspring a better country. And it can also be understood a little better why this approach has so many enemies, who have been in charge of distorting the message that we must give to Venezuelans.
Questions 3), 4) and 5) are answered in a document called Bases Comiciales, which must be approved by the Venezuelan people at the time of the consultation to be made to Venezuelans as to whether or not they want a constituent process. ANCO is currently working to publish as soon as possible an updated version of the proposed Bases for the consideration of Venezuelans.
The latest published version of the Bases Comiciales is contained in our 2017 constituent proposal (before Maduro convened his illegitimate Constituent, without the approval of Venezuelans), entitled "Bases Constituyentes, Propuesta de los Ciudadanos para la Reconciliación y el Cambio", the latest version of which was published on November 26, 2017 (see Document Bases Constituyentes, in https://tinyurl.com/8vjaccvu). The Bases Constituyentes extensively include the Bases Comiciales of the entire process (how the elections would be conducted, who can participate as constituents and on what grounds).
The Bases Comiciales contained in the aforementioned document are in the process of revision, but they are a good approximation of reference to our proposal for an inclusive electoral basis for all sectors of national life, with proportional representation, including the time period to develop the whole process and the proposed validity of the Original National Constituent Assembly, leaving open the possibility that it may be convened on the day the people so decide.
As will be seen, ANCO's proposal to Venezuelans is by no means improvised and has been submitted to the consideration of important constitutionalists who have made their timely suggestions over the years, always leaving a framework of action for the decisions that will finally be taken by the representatives of the people in the proposed National Constituent Assembly.
A questionnaire such as the one mentioned at the beginning of this note, in spite of including questions that are fully pertinent, does not reflect the true transcendence of why and how this process, so important for the country, should be carried out. And as the proponent and to a certain extent organizer of this "political and constitutional initiative" for Venezuela, and the person alluded to, I believed it necessary and important to place the same questions but in their proper context, so that the proposal may be evaluated by Venezuelans in its exact dimension for the future of the country. Otherwise, it will be dismissed - as it has been so many times before - getting lost once again in the heap of political proposals with which the Venezuelan people have been unfortunately deceived.
Caracas, March 30, 2022
Blog: https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
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