The oppositionist Claudio Fermín: No one has the right to sabotage the elections in Venezuela
The political leader explained that the appointment of the new National Electoral Council by the Supreme Court of Justice is a method established in the Constitution
Claudio Eloy Fermín Maldonado is a Venezuelan politician, sociologist and university professor, mayor of Caracas between 1989 and 1993. He is currently the president and founder of the opposition party Soluciones a Venezuela (Solutions to Venezuela), from where he has worked, constantly, for more than a year and a half to achieve a peaceful and consensual solution to the political crisis, as part of the Table of Dialogue carried out by sectors of the democratic opposition with the Government chaired by Nicolás Maduro.
“The moment of union is now, our country is crying out loud for us to think about it, to consider it and to value its greatness. These are not times of political divisions, nor of wars of powers; these are times of union and reconciliation. Venezuela demands a national agreement”, says Fermín as part of his integration campaign to improve the country’s political, economic and social conditions.
Interviewed on the program De Primera Mano (First-hand), broadcasted by the Venezuelan radio station Fe y Alegría Noticias, in the state of Zulia (West), the also former presidential candidate in 1993 for the Acción Democrática party, reviewed what he defined as “Achievements of the Dialogue Table” and called to vote in the elections on December 6 to choose the new National Assembly (AN).
The Venezuelan opponent stressed that it is essential for the country to renew and re-institutionalize the Legislative Power, and for this the December elections will set the course for a new phase that would leave behind extremism and lies for political purposes.
“You cannot speak with half truths” to the country because “half truths and half lies do a lot of damage because they are elements of disinformation”, said the political leader.
In this sense, he pointed out that “in October 2019, thanks to the efforts, which were very difficult, of the Dialogue Table, the deputies of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela) rejoined the National Assembly so that the ‘two-thirds’ of the Assembly could be formed and because we believe that the National Assembly needed to be re-institutionalized after years of diatribe, of illegal declaration of contempt, of becoming the campaign ‘headquarters’ of a small group of political parties that did not pass laws nor did they represent everyone”.
Reinstitutionalize the Legislative Power
Fermín, who was a deputy to the defunct bicameral Congress in the late 1980s and a constituent between 1999 and 2000, affirmed that in the current Venezuelan political sphere, “people want peace and a new National Assembly, not one where deputies continue to fight and throw punches at each other, instead of discussing laws for the benefit of the people”.
“There is a political need for a new National Assembly because the current one has not given us any results”, he stressed. “Venezuelans need an Assembly that really controls public spending, legislates and creates a climate of mutual understanding”.
“There is also a constitutional obligation because the mandate of this National Assembly expires in January (…) The country needs to be re-institutionalized. We, as Venezuelans, no matter how we think, have a Nation that we have to rebuild. We have to restore a minimum of stability and harmony to Venezuela”, he added.
He assured that “those who play to aggravate the crisis”, like Juan Guaidó and his lobby, “do not contribute at all to the happiness of Venezuela” and he stressed that “in these months that lie ahead we all have to work to overcome the circumstances”.
“Extremists seek to perpetuate an illegitimate parliament”
The politician also questioned the strategy of the leaders of opposition extremism to try to create an illegitimate parallel State and a National Assembly that has not been elected by the people. What do they want? Eternalize in a National Assembly without the people electing them? Here, there must be elections, that is essential”, he emphasized.
In this regard, he noted that the appointment of the new National Electoral Council (CNE) by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) is a method established in the Constitution when the National Assembly cannot or does not decide to do so.
“As it did on previous occasions, as in the case of the previous directive, with which we won the 2015 elections”, Fermín recalled of the process that the Judiciary executed at that time.
Fermín added that before the TSJ decided the appointment, we (Dialogue Table) had done everything possible so that the National Assembly would appoint the rectors of the CNE, but the opposition extremism did not allow the process to materialize.
“We have acted with transparency, we have fulfilled and exhausted all the procedures for the National Assembly to appoint the rectors,” said Fermín.
The Constitution establishes that the CNE rectors must be appointed by the National Assembly. However — he explained — it also stipulates that the parliament’s attribution is subject to the requirement that it “congregates two thirds of the total of deputies. If the National Assembly is not constituted in two thirds, then it does not have that attribution”.
Not to participate in elections is the strategy of the extremists
The opposition leader indicated that the extremist sectors “had a strategy to throw the stone and hide their hand. On the one hand they had the Nominations Committee, but on the other hand they prevented, sabotaged, lengthened the decision and then had the excuse of saying that with the old CNE you could not go to elections”.
Fermín warned that these sectors, that sabotage the democratic order, are not interested in the electoral path and that is why today “they continue in this preaching of abstention despite the fact that there is a new National Electoral Council”.
For that reason, he invited the people to vote regardless of their political sympathies. “We need Venezuelans to participate. I could never come to these microphones to tell them ‘don’t vote’, nobody has the right to say ‘don’t vote’, ‘don’t have an opinion’, ‘don’t influence’, ‘don’t demand a change’; we all need representation”.
“No political strategy has the right to sabotage an election that is the consultation of the people”, declared Fermin.
Fermín also highlighted that the Dialogue Table has been working, “taking into account all the previsitions” because of the pandemic, with sessions in which “the cases of political prisoners” have been discussed, among others.
He also celebrated that “we have kept our word. That is important because there were many dialogues before, almost five years of dialogues in the Dominican Republic, in Norway, in Barbados, with the Vatican, with Rodríguez Zapatero and unfortunately nothing came out of those dialogues”.
“In this brief time that we have been working (in the Dialogue Table), with pandemic and all, we are presenting results. There has been a space for a political thaw, we have removed the violence that incited the extremes from both sides”, he said.
To conclude, he made “a call to all Venezuelans, to rescue, with our presence, the National Assembly that has been lost in a very dark conflict, to give the country an institution that will take us out of the conflict and out of the hatred from here and there”.
