By Luis Manuel Aguana
It would be impossible to write a note specifically dedicated to the transition without referring to the approaches outlined in the most recent posts on this blog, especially the last one, where I divided the phases or stages we must go through in a specific order to resolve Venezuela's political crisis into clearly defined compartments. The topic was also addressed in an excellent special program of Arrímate al Mingo by MingoTeve on YouTube, in the special company of Dr. Blanca Rosa Mármol de León and political analyst Víctor Maldonado (see in Spanish, Desplazamiento, transición y refundación / ARRÍMATE AL MINGO / Miércoles 10 de septiembre de 2025, in https://www.youtube.com/live/qqxbi6_69TE?si=rjVUZZJQFwDeUQdw).
The conceptual construct Displacement-Transition-Refounding that I presented in my last article (see Venezuela: Displacement, Transition, and Re-founding, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/venezuela-displacement-transition-and.html) was very necessary to situate ourselves in the analysis of the country's political situation, where each phase represents a stage that must be passed through before we can say that we are out of the serious crisis that Venezuela is suffering.
It follows from the explanations in the previous notes, and from the excellent program hosted by Mingo and Erika Mendoza, that the Transition phase comes after the Displacement phase of the regime. That is, only once the previous Displacement phase has been completed and the regime is no longer in power is it possible to think about a Transitional government.
However, the Transition and Refoundation phases depend on the type of Displacement that has taken place. In other words, the phases are interdependent. A peaceful Transition cannot be expected if the Displacement was violent, much less a Refoundation without a general consensus among the factors involved and political stability in the country. This makes the Displacement phase crucial to the development of the entire process.
I would like to take as an example the case of the Displacement and subsequent Transition of the last dictator of the 20th century in Venezuela, Marcos Pérez Jiménez. The Armed Forces took complete charge of the Displacement phase. Pérez Jiménez left the country and a Governing Junta was immediately established: "...(Wolfgang) Larrazábal became the first president of the Governing Junta. The Junta was initially composed exclusively of military personnel, including Roberto Casanova, Abel Romero Villate, Carlos Luis Araque, and Pedro José Quevedo. However, due to protests against the military composition of the junta and the commitment of Colonels Casanova and Romero to Perez Jimenezism, the latter two were replaced by civilians Eugenio Mendoza and Blas Lamberti, representatives of important economic groups in the country. Likewise, the civilian Édgar Sanabria was incorporated as secretary of the junta” (see in Spanish, Wolfgang Larrazabal, Wikipedia, in https://share.google/IKvs561r2DjLqLx5l).
Since the military was responsible for removing the dictator, it was unthinkable that civilian authorities would take over command. In fact, the Governing Junta initially included military officers loyal to Pérez Jimenez, but due to internal protests, they were later replaced by civilians.
The period between January 23, 1958, through the general elections of December 7 (President and Congress), until the transfer of power to President Rómulo Betancourt on February 13, 1959, was the transition period following the dictatorship. During the period of the Governing Junta, “...the political parties banned during the dictatorship of Pérez Jiménez were legalized, a cabinet was appointed with representation from various sectors of society, a committee was appointed to create an electoral statute that would allow for immediate free elections, in addition to a review of public finances and the declaration of confiscation of the assets of the main leaders of the dictatorship.” (see Wolfgang Larrazabal in the previous reference) (emphasis added).
I must place special emphasis on the care taken by the Transition to create an electoral statute that would guarantee the country the transparency of general elections, outside the scope of the previous institutions created by the deposed regime. This should now be followed as a lesson learned from experience.
We could say that the process was clear from the first phase, with the military ousting the dictator and taking power, and then, in the next phase, imposing the legalization of political parties and calling general elections. Once that transition was completed in February 1959, the three main parties, Acción Democrática (AD), Unión Republicana Democrática (URD), and COPEI, finalized the political pact they had signed in October 1958, the Punto Fijo Pact, taking the necessary steps to produce a new Constitution to refound the country, thus beginning the Refoundation phase that would produce the 1961 Constitution, which guaranteed us 40 years of continuous democracy.
The Punto Fijo Pact, it can be said, had as its fundamental product the text of the 1961 Constitution, and this is a result of the fact that the first task imposed on the Senators and Representatives elected in December 1958 was the drafting of the constitutional text. In fact, as mentioned above, the Punto Fijo Pact was signed in October 1958; the elections were held in December 1958; on January 23, 1959, the first anniversary of the 1958 Revolution was celebrated, and on February 2, 1959, the Constitutional Reform Commission was established as a bicameral commission in the elected Congress" (see in Spanish, Allan R. Brewer-Carías, 1961 Constitution, Amendments Nos. 1 and 2, p. 20, in https://allanbrewercarias.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/47.-CONSTITUC-1961-ENMIENTS-1-y-2.pdf).
However, the Displacement and Transition phases in 1958 were entirely military, even without the current serious situation of a country contaminated by foreign military forces (ELN, FARC, Cubans, etc.) controlling large parts of the national territory, especially the border states, with the regime's consent.
In light of our own history, any political change that is intended to be carried out in Venezuela must not only have military leadership in the first and second phases, but also a basic agreement among all the political forces in the country in order to successfully produce a subsequent phase of Refoundation.
It should be borne in mind that any phase of displacement that is specific or misguided, that is, without going beyond a simple change in those at the head of the regime, will produce a succession WITHIN the same system. But if what is at stake is a total change, as happened in 1958, the Transition must take on the responsibility of assuming all public powers, to be renewed later, as happened in the previous Transition, thus laying the necessary groundwork for the Refoundation that will follow.
This is easy to say, but it is terrifyingly more complicated than history tells us. Each phase of the 1958 political transition had to be carefully designed and executed by politicians with a capital P, with all the threats that any phase could go wrong. On this occasion, aside from the fact that we no longer have the kind of politicians who gave us democracy in the 1940s, the situation and context are infinitely more complex and will require the best contribution from everyone, as well as an opposition that is truly open to listening and reaching consensus. Otherwise, there will be no phases of transition and refoundation, let alone democracy with freedom...
Caracas, September 12, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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