It may seem crazy for me to address this question today, and in fact it is. After years of writing and addressing this issue in multiple forums, due to the damage that this regime has caused to the country's institutionality, in my opinion it is crazy that there are still important personalities who have to explain it, and social communicators who still wonder why a change in the current 1999 Constitution is necessary, and what does it have to do with the welfare of the population, given that, according to their criteria, what has existed is "violation of the Constitution", and not something else.
And to get straight to the point, I am referring to the recent program on the YouTube channel of the well-known journalist Napoleón Bravo, in an interview with Dr. Humberto Calderón Berti, entitled "From the three moments of the destruction of the country to the experience to recover it" (see in Spanish complete program at https://youtu.be/JH3P6Hpxlus).
At minute 10:18 Napoleon Bravo asks "Why do you need a new Constitution, so that for example, the maximum sanctions of the country are not only 30 years, but when you finish with the country it is the death penalty? Why do you want a new Constitution?". Dr. Calderon's answer, apart from being comprehensive, given the character of a statesman he has had in his public life, expressed what everyone in Venezuela knows: the reality of the country points towards an institutional re-foundation, eliminating the legal framework built by tyranny in more than 20 years, and setting the palpable example of the necessary return towards decentralization.
That should have been enough, but it did not convince the interviewer when he insisted, "Where in the Constitution does it say that decentralization was rolled back?", concluding that the problem is that "they do not respect the Constitution".
In this very small space on the net I will try -again- to expand a little on why THE CONSTITUTION MUST BE CHANGED, and not only because of the explanation given in a very short period of time in a program by Dr. Calderón Berti, which is nothing but the consequence of what IS PROVIDED FOR IN THE CONSTITUTION, and which is the fundamental cause of why the country is as it is due to its institutional framework, which was distorted even more by the criminals who ended with the institutional system that prevailed until 1999.
Why is a new Constitution needed?
I will start with Napoleon Bravo's first question. The Constitution needs to be changed because the 1999 Constitution ELIMINATED our status as a DECENTRALIZED FEDERAL STATE established by our founders in 1811. The 1999 Constitution eliminated the REPRESENTATION of the States of Venezuela in the parliament, replacing it with a mock Congress called the National Assembly. The Deputies are the representation of the political currents and the opinion of the citizens at the determined moment of an election, but the Senators are the representation of a whole territorial conglomerate, which has its own reason for being as a State, with equal rights, regardless of the number of inhabitants it has. That is why the State of Miranda had the same number of Senators as the State of Delta Amacuro, the State of Cojedes or the State of Nueva Esparta, just to name 3 States whose population density is lower than that of Catia or Petare in Caracas, which are not even Parishes anymore.
When making the new laws, the Deputies had the Constitutional obligation to deliver the result to the Senate for its final approval. Why? Because it was in that instance that the representation of the country as a whole assumed a new legislation to be applied equally in all the territories of the federation. It is also for that reason that the President of the Senate was also the President of the Congress.
By changing this institutional golden rule, the 1999 Constitution relegated the States with less inhabitants, and in general the rest of the country that is not Caracas, to the worst oblivion of the dictatorships of the majorities, artfully managed by an Electoral Power kidnapped by a tyranny. As a consequence of this, decentralization crumbled like a house of cards, as the fundamental body of decisions to hand over to the States what by nature is theirs.
But if this is not enough for those who wonder, as journalist Napoleon Bravo did in that interview, why another Constitution is needed, the current Constitutional structure DOES NOT ALLOW for someone other than the Executive Branch to administer the National Public Treasury, leaving in the hands of the President of the Republic the decision of who receives and who does not receive resources in the country, very convenient if the President of the Republic wishes to eliminate his political enemies who are still elected in the States by a law of election of Governors and Mayors that amazes me that it is still in force.
And for those who argue that because I am not a constitutional lawyer and therefore I cannot give an opinion on the constitutional barbarity to which we have been subjected, I leave you the words of one of the best who is, Dr. Asdrubal Aguiar, in a forum held in July 2014 in El Nacional. Asdrúbal Aguiar, in a Forum held in July 2014 in El Nacional, referring specifically to the text of the 1999 Constitution: "... a Centralized State is created, the municipal autonomy, historical basis not only of the Republic but of our democratic experience, is eliminated, the Municipal and State competences are conditioned to the national laws, they are given to the President of the Republic through what was originally called in the constituent debates, the basic laws, a copy of the Cuban constitutional model, but to avoid the scandal, they said that the figure was about Enabling Laws, but enabling laws that, in defect of our constitutional tradition, allow the President to do whatever he wants in legislative matters without any kind of limitation, and as if that were not enough, a Chapter of National Security is incorporated where the strategic concept of the Nation is defined by the President of the Republic himself under a perspective where National Security includes everything, even the way of walking of the citizens in Venezuela. Conclusion: What is the 99 Constitution good for? In a democratic perspective, for nothing. In the perspective of what the country has experienced in the course of the last 15 years, it has served for everything..." (see in Spanish Forum of El Nacional, audio by Dr. Asdrúbal Aguiar https://soundcloud.com/laguana-1/intervencion-del-dr-asdrubal-aguiar-foro-el-nacional-21-07-2014).
However, I do not wish to dwell only on the above, but on what I consider even more important: how all this Constitutional change has a fundamental impact on the lives of citizens and especially on the quality of that life.
If the power currently resides at the top of the pyramid by provision of the Constitution, leaving the citizens of all the States unprotected as a consequence of an unequal distribution of the country's resources, we must change the structure of this arrangement. Article 167.4 of the 1999 Constitution states: "The income of the States is... 4.- The resources corresponding to them by way of the Constitutional Situado. The Situado is an item equivalent to a maximum of twenty percent of the total annual Estimated Revenues of the National Treasury...". Few people take a look at the fact that this part of the Pact is completely detrimental to the citizens, clearly favoring 80% of those who come to exercise power in Venezuela.
ANCO's proposal to give power to the citizens is to establish a new relationship of power in a new Pact between the governors and the governed, where the citizen is placed first, which implies that 80% should go to the States and Municipalities, but mainly to the Municipalities, within a new proposal of political-territorial distribution and regional autonomy. More to the Municipalities, then to the States and then to the Federal Power. In that order. The figure of the Situado Constitucional would disappear, because it would be the States, now on the contrary, who would decide the contribution to be given in an autonomous manner for the support of a Federal Government, assuming in practice the control of its development, according to their own potentialities. This is what I have called the inversion of the pyramid of power in Venezuela. The one who has the resources is the one who has the power to decide his quality of life, in other words, the citizen. That is the proposal of El Gran Cambio, in a nutshell... (see in Spanish El Gran Cambio, Una propuesta para la Refundación de Venezuela, in https://tinyurl.com/5n6enjrr).
It is impossible to do what has been said so far without the convocation of the Venezuelan people to a National Constituent Assembly, which will discuss the bases for a new Venezuela, which will put the citizen first, and put in its place the role that the representatives of the citizens should play in the Public Powers. This is what we call the Refoundation of the Nation.
So, that is why a new Constitution is needed, to give the power to the citizens. I hope I have expanded the answer, not to Napoleon Bravo, but to Venezuelans, especially those who saw that interview. The fulfillment of that new Constitution would no longer be only in the hands of those who make politics, but in the hands of a whole people. Dr. Humberto Calderón Berti, as a true statesman, has fully understood the need to go to a Constituent process, in view of these and other realities that do not fit in only three pages. If only those who intend to lead the destiny of Venezuela after the regime could also understand this...
Caracas, May 18, 2023
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
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