For those of us who have publicly expressed our opinion on the non- swearing-in of Edmundo González Urrutia (EGU) abroad, we already have a clear answer of the policy decided by the opposition leadership led by María Corina Machado (MCM), as she herself effectively informed in her recent press conference: “We have heard proposals from some actors on the convenience of the swearing-in of the President Elect outside Venezuela. We have always responded, he will be sworn in in Venezuela at the National Assembly. This has been the position we have had, and it is the one we have also agreed with those governments that recognize our President Elect” (see in Spanish María Corina speaks to the country face to face, What's next?, Hasta que Caiga la Tiranía channel, in https://youtu.be/6gdJB-kDk9Y?t=2394).
Period, “no questions to ask”. Unfortunately, the swearing in of the President Elect is not a mere legal formality that can be delayed at the will of anyone, least of all the President himself, or by agreements with other governments, not only because it is a constitutional mandate and obligation of EGU, as I commented in my previous note, but also because every day that passes, there is a possible risk that we will lose years of effort and opposition lives, in the extreme case that something happens to EGU outside the country that prevents him from moving on to the next stage as President in office (see The swearing-in iceberg, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/the-swearing-in-iceberg.html).
This is a precaution that I think should have been taken into consideration, not only for the physical condition of any person of the age of the President Elect, but also for the very security of the process at hand, given the crimes that we already know that the regime has ordered to be committed abroad and that are public, notorious and communicative. It is not my intention in any way to cause alarm, but these considerations correspond to the situation that we are in fact living in Venezuela and that are no secret to anyone.
Article 233 of the Constitution states: “When there is an absolute lack of the elected President, a new direct and secret universal election shall be held within the following thirty consecutive days”. Are those who participated in the decision announced by MCM to swear in EGU in Venezuela aware that a new election like the one of July 28 is impossible? Are they aware that the situation we have achieved so far with EGU is not possible to repeat under the same circumstances? We are in the most critical stage of collecting these elections, and in case of a supervening disappearance of the President Elect, there is NOTHING TO COLLECT.
Upon being sworn in as soon as possible, EGU would immediately formalize his succession to MCM as Vice President, as already announced, and in the event that something should happen to him abroad as President of the Republic in office, the President-in-Office MCM would continue the struggle for the recovery of the country as planned, but under completely different conditions, because it would only be up to her to call for elections in Venezuela once the regime is no longer in power.
The strategy that the opposition is clearly following for the swearing in of EGU in Venezuela, and which we are given to understand by the statement of MCM and its spokesmen, is to wait for the events to unfold regarding the policy of the US President towards Latin America, especially with the decisions regarding the terrorist gangs such as the Aragua Train and drug trafficking, both managed by the Venezuelan regime. In other words, “wait-and-see” what the US does with these realities in the short, medium or long term.
We could agree with this strategy of “wait and see”, but the problem is that we Venezuelans have run out of time. Had EGU been sworn in on January 10 as stated in the 1999 Constitution, for example in the US, before the TSJ in exile, at the OAS headquarters, with the presence of presidents and former presidents, and the diplomatic world accredited in that country, it would have given him the corresponding official platform to meet with the President Elect, by that time Donald Trump, and begin to address without delay the solution to Venezuela, as well as the situation of Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S., in light of the promises made by candidate Trump to regularize immigration, because that was an issue he would address immediately upon being sworn in as President of the U.S., as indeed he did without contemplation.
Do you think that Trump, already as President in office, would have made the decisions against the TPS of Venezuelans if there had been a previous meeting with EGU to address that issue? Some will say that he would have achieved nothing, but we will never know that now. What is certain is that perhaps we would not be picking up the broken glass of explaining to the U.S. government that Venezuelans living in the U.S. are not Aragua Train criminals to be deported.
Or, do you believe that Trump would have sent a special negotiator to meet with Maduro, without the officially recognized EGU government being previously aware of the terms? And it was not that the negotiator Richard Grenell arrived in Venezuela with Trump's cudgel to have the imprisoned Americans returned to him and Maduro meekly handed them over to him. It was enough for Grenell to tell Maduro that the U.S. would not mess with Chevron's license for six more months for the regime to hand over its prisoners. The Trump administration will always do what is necessary to protect its interests, whether it is rescuing American hostages or expelling Venezuelans from the United States.
And so I could point out others that would be the consequence of continuing with a “wait and see” strategy, not to mention that EGU and MCM will not handle the funds that they gave to the AN2015 in the US, first interested in freezing EGU as President Elect, as I have already presented in previous notes. The US government will continue working for its own interests, and sooner or later -and hopefully sooner rather than later- will remove Maduro, as part of its current continental policy, of that I have no doubt. The problem is that so far we do not seem to know when, nor if they will consider the political opposition of MCM beyond being an interested witness in those decisions, apart from the fact that we could not know for not having a government officially, if for some geopolitical reason those decisions are delayed or, even worse, cancelled.
Inaction as a policy works in some cases, but it can be very harmful when there are humanitarian crises, war conflicts or environmental problems that require urgent solutions. And Venezuela suffers from all three. I do not have to remind you here that Venezuela is a first-rate humanitarian case, with millions of displaced people and hunger. It has war conflicts imported from the ELN guerrillas and FARC dissidents. And by associating with the regime for the drug trafficking business on the border, they also imported the conflict they have, as in the case of the war in Catatumbo between both sides, with the consequent displacement of more people. And as the icing on the cake, we have the serious problem of environmental destruction of the Mining Arc, ceded to the ELN guerrilla as payment for the business partnership of the Maduro regime. This is the Dantesque picture that the country is living and that needs some urgent intervention, in which we cannot influence in any way as we have decided that there will be no official opposition presence until the US decides what to do.
Hopefully we will not have to wait too long for what the US does, without any proactive activity on our part, beyond the diplomatic contacts made by EGU in his trips, because what he does cannot be called official tours because he is not the President in office. Why do I say this? Because there is a second phase that we still have to face, since Maduro's resignation will not be enough.
Whatever the US does to solve the situation in Venezuela will have to involve the entire regime, including its military, because if only Maduro resigns and goes to Russia or Turkey, as has been suggested to be part of Grenell's conversation with Maduro, it is not that EGU will come to Venezuela to be sworn in, as some may believe. His successor would be part of the same structure that carried out the coup d'état on July 29 by ignoring the triumph of EGU, and that intends to modify the Constitution so as not to need the will of the people anymore because they no longer have a people. So let's get ready for a next phase of this struggle, which will require everything that can be done outside Venezuela, including that swearing-in, as well as the active presence of MCM outside the country, because this tragedy will not end with the resignation of Maduro alone....
Caracas, February 6, 2025
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