One of the most controversial aspects that came to Venezuela from the last presidential election in Colombia was the proposal to call for a National Constituent Assembly offered by the then candidate and current President Elect of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. Certainly, Petro offered a Constituent convocation as the first act after his election as President, being a presidential candidate for the 2018 elections in Colombia. But he lost the elections. The following was Petro's position, before the Constituent issue in 2017:
"...if I am President of Colombia, the first act on the first day is to call a referendum with a single question: Do you want, yes or no, to call a National Constituent Assembly in Colombia? If the majority says yes, it allows us to convene it to carry out this reform. It is not a National Constituent Assembly like the one of 1991. It is not convened in the center of Bogotá. It has to be a territorial Constituent Assembly, because that is the great emptiness of the 1991 Constitution, the local, the local democracy, has to be territorial, delimited. It is not a reform of everything. The Constitution of 1991 has advantages in many issues. Limited to what? To these reforms: health, education, justice, the new economy -we could talk another day about what this new economy means, I have been trying to explain these days what it means to get out of oil and into production- and politics"... "While the Constituent Assembly is in session, the Congress continues but has no function. It is suspended until the functions of the Constituent are finished"... "It must be plural, not in the Maduro style, of only one, that does not make sense. It is a Constituent that is the expression of the Colombian society..." (highlighted ours)(see Semana TV, in Spanish, November 17, 2017, Petro and his first decision as president would be to call for a constituent referendum, in https://youtu.be/vYQLKXh6l9c, min 21:00).
However, despite having stated this way in November 2017, already in December 2021 as a candidate of the Historic Pact, Petro publicly changes his position on the issue, in the 2022 presidential campaign:
"Q: If you win the Presidency of the Republic, will there be a Constituent Assembly or not? A: We made the Constitution of 1991. The institutions of Colombia today originate in the Constituent Assembly of 1991 and we were the majority force of the National Constituent Assembly by popular vote. Why would we dismantle what we did? The Constitution of 1991 serves to make the economic changes. The Constitution of 1991 mandates that all Colombians have fundamental rights and describes them. Today they do not have them. But it is not because the Constitution does not order it, it is because the governments of a corrupt regime, which is not constitutional, have violated them. They have done business with the rights of Colombians. Therefore, the change in Colombia is made with the 91 Constitution. It does not need a Constituent Assembly to make another Constitution because we already have it. And that is the first Pact. It was a Pact made with Álvaro Gómez and the conservative forces of that time, and with the liberals of that time, and it came to fruition. The Constitution of 1991 is the irrefutable demonstration that a Historic Pact can be made in Colombia" (see Semana TV, Gustavo Petro and the Historic Pact debate the road to the Presidency of Colombia, Elections 2022, at https://youtu.be/8tLtSubPoLc, min. 1:33:10).
And the updated Gustavo Petro of 2021 was right when he said that the Colombian Constitution does not require a Constituent Assembly to make the necessary political reforms to improve health, education, justice and economy. Just by reading the Political Constitution of Colombia, updated with the legislative acts up to 2016 (see in Spanish in, https://www.cijc.org/es/NuestrasConstituciones/COLOMBIA-Constitucion.pdf), these aspects are guaranteed: health (Art. 44, 49, 50, 64), education (Art. 45, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70), justice (Art.95, 116, 152, 156), economy (Art. 332-338).
Colombians were given a modern Constitution in 1991 that can be reformed, as indeed it has been reformed 51 times (information as of September 2019) by legislative acts of Congress (see in Spanish, How many Constitutions has Colombia had, How many modifications has the 1991 Constitution had, in https://www.senalcolombia.tv/cultura/constitucion-politica-colombia-historia).
Now, the fear that Petro may follow the Chavista franchise of modifying
the Constitution to change the Colombian political model, introducing an
indefinite reelection or placing socialism as the only ideology in the country,
I am not saying it is impossible, but it would be very difficult for him given
the polarization of practically half of the country after the elections, with a
much more educated people than ours. This
without taking into account that the House of Representatives approved the
elimination of the figure of presidential reelection from the country's
Political Constitution during 2015, in one of its many modifications.
Petro stopped offering a constituent assembly due to the rejection of the Colombian people to that possibility that he had been raising since before 2017 and that for this election he discarded before his election, on June 19, 2022. The Constitution allows citizens to "submit bills or constitutional reform" in a number "equal to or greater than five percent of the electoral roll existing on the respective date or thirty percent of the councilors or deputies of the country" (Article 155 Constitutional). Likewise, "The Political Constitution may be reformed by Congress, by a Constituent Assembly or by the people through referendum" (Article 374 of the Constitution). Therefore, the option of structural change through the Constituent Assembly will always be present in the current Constitution.
But the important thing about the Constituent approach in Colombia has to do with the purpose of the proponents. Petro understood that he could make the reforms he felt were necessary to address the problems of health, education, justice and the economy. They already have a Constitution that allows them to address those problems, as he said in December 2021. In Venezuela we do not have such a Constitution. In fact, the Colombian Constitution, despite possibly requiring those reforms that Petro insists are necessary (health, education, justice and economy) far exceeds ours in decentralization and regional autonomy, without having a resource distribution mechanism (General System of Participations of Departments, Districts and Municipalities, Art. 356 Constitutional), more advanced than the simple Situado Constitucional percentage that we have been dragging since the last century in Venezuela, and that has served to enrich the occupants of Miraflores and their supporters.
The quantum leap that Colombians made with the 1991 Constitution from the previous one of 1886 of the previous century, is what we are seeking for Venezuela from the Alianza Nacional Constituyente Originaria, ANCO. That is, to break with the asphyxiating centralization, generating politically and constitutionally the regional autonomies giving more power to the Municipalities and States, in that order, bringing the power closer to the citizens. Colombians have already made much more progress in this area than we have. Read article 287 of the current Colombian Constitution:
“Article 287. The
territorial entities enjoy autonomy for the management of their interests, and
within the limits of the Constitution and the law. By virtue of this, they
shall have the following rights:
1. To be governed by their own
authorities.
2. To exercise the powers
corresponding to them.
3. To administer the resources
and establish the taxes necessary for the fulfillment of their functions.
4. To participate in national revenues".
However, our constitutional proposal, reflected in El Gran Cambio (see in Spanish El Gran Cambio, una propuesta para la Refundación de Venezuela, in https://ancoficial.blogspot.com/p/documentos-fundamentales.html) proposes something more advanced. We want even greater municipal and state autonomy, leaving to the Federal State and the President of the Republic a coordinating and representative function, with much less power than it has now, which would be distributed among all the Municipalities and States, with decentralized and contributory financing. That is why the Constitutional changes we propose would be comparable to those made by Colombians when they moved from a militaristic Constitution of the 19th century (1886) to one of civil rights of the 20th century (1991). We would move from a 20th century Constitution of highly centralized power (1999) to one of Municipal and Regional power for the 21st century. This would include, for example, how oil would be approached in a new economy, where the oil states would be the ones to decide the development of their industry locally.
The Constituent Assembly issue is by no means simple. It is not a question of presenting the country with a government program as some politicians insist on making believe, but a structural change of power relations between citizens and the State, with all that this implies. It is a structural renovation of the country's institutions and public powers. That is, a REFOUNDATION OF THE NATION. It is not about a Constituent Assembly to impose an ideology or to remain in power indefinitely, as proposed by the franchise created by Hugo Chávez and the agents of the Sao Paulo Forum in 1999. It is about the development of our peoples. If both Colombia and Venezuela fully understand this, Colombia will continue to improve what it has already advanced constitutionally in 1991, and Venezuela will make the leap to the development we deserve as a people.
Caracas, June 29, 2022
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