From an historical interview:
Carlos Rangel: That political order that was created then (1961) and to which you contributed so much because you were one of the drafters of the current Constitution, has now lasted as long as General Gómez. It has turned out to be one of the most lasting political orders in the history of the Republic. In your opinion, what reforms does it now (1986) urgently require in order to last much longer?
Arturo Uslar Pietri: You are asking me something very difficult, but we are going to try. I believe that we should concentrate on what I would call two essential reforms: a political reform, which would be the reform of sincere democracy, to get out of the provisionality in which we have lived until now, to ensure the effective representation of the one elected by the voter. That is to say that there should be uninominal elections, that each parish should again elect its councilman, that each electoral district should elect its deputy, that the one who elects should have someone to complain to and ask you what you have done with my vote, because I voted for you and you have not complied, and next time I will not vote for you. This must be sincere, and it is very dangerous not to do so. An effective separation of Powers must be achieved, because nowadays political parties have fallen into the vice of controlling and managing all the Public Powers, so that the separation of Powers is a myth. The Judiciary has no independence. Here we vote for a man who is the President and we delegate everything to him.
Here we are doing something that is constitutionally and doctrinally inadmissible, it is a delegation of sovereignty. The Venezuelan people are consulted every 5 years by means of a plebiscite, which party do you want to govern them, and with which President. And the Venezuelan people answer, "Party A", with its presidential candidate, "Mr. X". And in those 5 years that party and that person summarize in their hands all the National Sovereignty, until 5 years from now when they are asked again. Democracy must be sincere. It is necessary that the people not only elect a president, nor that they give a blank vote or a blank check to a political party, but that they elect their representative. There must be effective participation and a movement of integration between the popular base of the country and the men who exercise authority on their behalf. Otherwise it is not being fulfilled. So that political reform is vital and essential for Venezuelan democracy to be able to really assert itself.
The other is economic reform. Here we have lived in these years thanks to the oil abundance in a system of fatal economic paternalism. In what they call populism, which is sterile and sterilizing, what it has done is to falsify the Venezuelan economy, weaken it, annul it, turn it into a parasite of the State, which in turn is a parasite of oil. So, this should be rectified in depth to see if the country can be put into production. That is to say that the State should live off the country and not the country should live off the State through oil, which is the greatest subversion we have ever been able to carry out.
Carlos Rangel: In other words, are these two reforms essential for the democratic political order to endure?
Arturo Uslar Pietri: Stabilize, grow and serve...
(see in Spanish Sofía Imber and Carlos Rangel interview Arturo Uslar Pietri, at https://youtu.be/_4rUnO8FXNo, min 27:52) (our highlighted).
The above is an excerpt from an interview conducted by Sofía Imber and Carlos Rangel, to Arturo Uslar Pietri at the dawn of his eightieth birthday, in his then prestigious television program Buenos Días, on April 11, 1986, a date that 16 years later would become emblematic for all Venezuelans, precisely because those two transcendental reforms, of which Arturo Uslar Pietri made an extraordinary radiography, were never taken into account by those who at that time paraded the resources of Venezuelans, thinking that the party would last forever.
And in essence, what was the approach? To consolidate democracy. Uslar Pietri insisted once again on what had to be done so that Venezuelan democracy could endure, politically stable and with economic growth, as it was known at that time. The experience of one of the best and most enlightened intellectuals of the Venezuelan twentieth century pointed out a path that nobody wanted to listen to and even less to follow, and which he repeated until he died in 2001.
In essence, Uslar Pietri's radiography pointed out that we should establish fundamental political reforms that would prevent Venezuelans from delegating National Sovereignty to the political parties, which would take over the life of the country. And in the economic area, the reforms that would put oil to work so that the State would live from the citizens and not the citizens from the State. This clearly meant breaking with parasitism and achieving a working and prosperous society. This, which from a distance seems simple, was, however, tremendously complicated for a political class -on one side and on the other- that lived and continues to live off the State.
How do you break this vicious circle? By changing the system of power relations in the country. By ensuring that the representation, which the parties took over, returns to the citizens at all levels, and at the same time creating the conditions for the citizens to be in a position to demand, as Uslar mentioned in the interview, their Sovereignty, in order to create a system of economic relations that puts the country's wealth to work in favor of the citizen and not in favor of the State. That is, in short, ANCO's Project The Great Change (see in Spanish El Gran Cambio, Una propuesta para la Refundación de Venezuela, in https://ancoficial.blogspot.com/p/documentos-fundamentales.html), and that it should be discussed in a National Constituent Assembly by the legitimate representatives of the people of the entire country at the appropriate time.
In 1986, it was difficult for Arturo Uslar Pietri to answer the question of how to do what he insisted on. But he was very clear about what to do. The Great Change project answers the question of how and through what mechanism to bring about that change that would build a virtuous circle for Venezuelans. If those were the vices of our democracy of the 40 years in 1986, we could hardly go back to them, and even less with the same protagonists, who still sell us that path to supposedly recover the country from their hollow parties. The country cannot fall into this deception.
The informed and documented Venezuela knows well through the voices of history, who were responsible and what were the vices that brought us to this misfortune that meant -and still means- the Socialism of the XXI Century for Venezuela, so we must follow a completely different path. The path of giving the people their Sovereignty will by no means be easy and perhaps there will be many of us who will not be able to see this aspiration crystallized, but it will be the only one that will ensure the welfare of the new generations. Arturo Uslar Pietri knew that he would not see it either, but he never imagined what would come later for not following his advice to sincerify and improve democracy. Let's not make that mistake again when we start over...
Caracas, April 18, 2023
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