By Luis Manuel Aguana
I have always believed that the role that
civil society should play in what happens in the country is to be an active
subject of pressure so that the political actors, who are responsible for
making decisions, act in favour of the citizens. If someone in civil society
wants to play the role of the parties, then let them run and compete for the
vote and become political actors. Unfortunately, in this madness that Venezuela
has become, there are people within civil society who have deviated from their
place in this distorted context precisely because political actors have misplaced
their role to act in favor of the citizens. But if we confuse the roles, in the
long run the remedy is worse than the disease.
Nobody like civil society to complain to the
official opposition politicians, with Juan Guaidó at the head, who have done
extremely badly. We are the ones who have paid the price for an endless chain
of errors since there is something called the Interim Government. This
institutional figure that was born on January 23, 2019 is the tool that has
done the most damage to the Castro-Chávez-Madurista regime in its entire
existence. But from there to confuse Guaidó with Presidencia Encargada is a
mistake we can all pay for.
The criticisms that have been made of Juan
Guaidó and the decisions that have been made by his interim government team,
including those made by myself from this corner of the network, cannot be aimed
at undermining the institution that was born on 23 January 2019. They are aimed
at what Juan Guaidó and his government should do and is not doing to displace
Maduro from power, because THAT IS THE ONLY REASON FOR HIM TO EXIST. The
Presidency in charge has a unique and unavoidable objective "to cease the
usurpation". It does not aim to "govern" in the common terms of
what everyone knows.
However, it seems that this is not what the
occupant of the Presidency and those around him have understood, and they have
spent more than a year and a half going around in circles weakening the
institutional figure to the point that Venezuelans consider Juan Guaidó a
mistake. This has crossed national borders, weakening the only instrument we
now have to get out of the regime. Venezuela is a highly presidentialist
country and the institution is confused with the occupier, when they are two
completely different things.
I want to be very precise with this: if
someone raises the mistakes that Guaidó has made (who has made them and many
others), without indicating an alternative political course of action
that he can follow to amend the mistakes he has made, then the
approach is opportunistic if it comes from a politician (take off your hat to
put me on), taking the institution of the Presidency-in-Charge with him. But if
it comes from someone from civil society, then he is confusing gymnastics with
magnesia, trying to pass himself off as a politician without being one, and he
is also irresponsible because he undermines the only thing that has harmed the
regime in 20 years.
We Venezuelans cannot afford to lose the
institutional figure of the Presidency-in-Charge as the Constitutional figure
created through Article 233 to combat usurpation. And if we lose it
deliberately because we consider that its purpose has expired, or for some
other reason, it is because we have an alternative plan to replace it. But that
is not what appears on the short-term horizon. Juan Guaidó has only a few
months left to tell us what he is going to do with this Presidency-in-Charge
before the regime's parliamentary elections, which are intended to dynamite it.
We from ANCO have supported an institutional
path proposed by distinguished citizen members of Civil Society who have not
confused their role, and which is expressed in a communication sent to the
Secretary General of the OAS, Dr. Luis Almagro where we ask the countries that
make up that Organization of States, to support and manage from its Permanent
Council, a humanitarian solution of an electoral nature, which is nothing more
than to constitute themselves as arbitrators of an electoral solution that
calls on the People's Sovereignty to decide the problem of Venezuela, because
the regime destroyed that path by putting the Electoral Power at its service (see
https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/apoyo-la-solicitud-de-la-sociedad-civil-venezolana-al-secretario-general-de-la-oea-para-la-aplicaci%C3%B3n-de-una-soluci%C3%B3n-humanitaria-de-caracter-electoral.html).
How this electoral solution is reached in the
country (pressure on the regime by the OAS countries, more sanctions, threats,
etc.) should be studied in this regional body. We have asked Juan Guaidó and
his Interim Presidency to take the lead in this approach before the OAS, not
only because that Organization has recognized his legitimate presidency and has
an ambassador there, but because all the countries that have recognized him
have stated that Venezuela must follow a peaceful, constitutional and electoral
path to resolve the crisis, openly excluding a military solution. Well, that is
a perfectly possible path.
Until the politicians tell us otherwise, for
us the Legitimate Interim Presidency exists and we support it as an
institution. But in the face of harmful
deviations we must propose structured paths of action and insist until we are
heard, that is our role. Juan Guaidó must understand that. The path that ANCO
has chosen, not now but for many years, is the call of the Popular Sovereignty
to solve the political crisis. When everything is destroyed, it is necessary to
go to the People's Sovereignty to rebuild the institutions. We did not invent
this, the Liberator said in his letter to Santander in October 1826.
The President of the United States Donald Trump, in recent declarations
to the journalist José Díaz-Balart of the Telemundo Network indicated: "I
support whoever is elected, and at this moment, he seems to be the elected
president, but the system is very bad there, it seems to be losing some power"...
"We want someone who has the support of the people. I support the person
who has the support of the people (...) We are going to take care of the people
of Venezuela" (see Panorama in Spanish, El Mandatario aseguró “algo va a pasar” en
Venezuela y el Gobierno de Estados Unidos estará “muy involucrado”
The President-in-Charge could hardly continue
to waste time when Trump is telling him publicly to call for People's
Sovereignty. The support of the United States will be for someone who has the
support of the people. Civil Society has already proposed the mechanism to
achieve this, it is up to Juan Guaidó what politicians should do: act in favor
of the citizens...
Caracas, July 15, 2020
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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