Until the last minute, all kinds of speculation were woven about the possibility that María Corina Machado went to the Supreme Court of Justice to have her disqualification reviewed – the quotes are appropriate in this case because the supposed disqualification imposed by a minor official of the The Comptroller’s Office violates all constitutional norms – in the terms made explicit in a sibylline offer from the Maduro regime, within the framework of the Barbados Agreement, transmitted through the Kingdom of Norway, mediator of the agreement, and confirmed by the head of the Delegation of the Unitary Platform, Gerardo Blyde. The regime’s offer was intended to create an impossible situation for MCM, according to which if it went to the TSJ it would fall into the death trap of an institution without independence, and if it did not go it would deviate from the Barbados Agreement and lose the protection of this instrument and its international guarantors. Both positions had their defenders, even among people who support MCM.
I must confess that I was pleasantly surprised by the legal and political wisdom, and the extraordinary selection of the moment to present itself to the TSJ, and by the fact that the news was known through a post on the social network X of the United States Embassy . In essence, MCM’s decision to go to court and avoid the argument of the constitutional trap by not admitting that she was disqualified, abruptly puts the ball in Maduro’s court, who will now have to consider escalating her actions to divert the opposition of the electoral route, and that once again feels the pressure of the guarantors of the Barbados Agreement.
The strategy followed by the regime is extremely twisted and reveals considerable intelligence and cunning in the exercise of evil, which in no way should be underestimated. It is an unfortunate recurring tendency among our people to dismiss Maduro’s “government” as incompetent and full of unprepared people. The truth is that it is a very effective regime and full of intelligence and strategic analysis resources, largely supported by the Cubans, to fulfill its essential purpose: to remain in power at all events, even if this brings ruin and poverty of the nation. Faced with a regime that is literally carrying out a war against its own people, it is impossible to ask MCM and the leadership that accompanies it to act by publicly announcing all its actions and thereby prematurely alert the adversaries of the Venezuelan nation. It is one thing to demand sincerity of purpose and civic honesty from the candidate, which is absolutely legitimate. Another, very different one, is to forget that we are literally in a situation of war to restore the validity of our Constitution in the midst of a situation in which none of the conditions of a democratic country are met. If concrete examples were needed, it is enough to note the escalation of repression against leaders of civil society and the Vente party, which is expressed in the arbitrary and humiliating arrest of Roberto Abdul. This in terms of repression, but we must not forget that the regime plays on a multiple board where the Barbados Agreement, the conflict with Guyana and the international geopolitical arena are pieces to move without hesitation in defense of its interests.
Thus, we are facing a new chapter of what is meant by the phrase “until the end” that MCM has repeated on numerous occasions to refer to the terms of his candidacy and exercise of the leadership that the sovereign granted him in the primary. We have frequently heard references to the need for a succession mechanism because the government will not allow MCM to be a candidate in the presidential elections scheduled for 2024. We must be crystal clear that any attempt to promote a succession at this stage of the war for Democracy is not only playing to the malicious interests of the regime, but also ignoring the popular will, something to which no political or civil society leader has the right. Among many interpretations of what “until the end” means, there is one that is especially attractive to me: the government must be forced to face the terminal dilemma of allowing fair and democratic elections, or violate all possible spaces and expose oneself to its own people and the international community as an authoritarian regime that remains in power by force. We will see then how they react to an exercise of constitutional civil resistance and international pressure. It will then be time to change lower case letters to upper case letters: from “until the end” to “until the end”. www.venamerica.org.
Vladimiro Mujica*
