For any good Venezuelan, seeing Nicolás Maduro pretend, so coolly, that he presides over a “normal” government in a “normal” country, is shocking. Who destroyed the economy, shrinking it to almost a quarter of what it was when he became president and condemning more than 94% of his countrymen to poverty; who arbitrarily keeps hundreds of Venezuelans imprisoned for political reasons, many of them military; and who is being investigated by United Nations agencies and the ICC for his alleged responsibility, as head of state, in the murder of demonstrators and the torture and death of those kept in the custody of his security agencies, calmly walks through the spaces of power as if he did not have to answer for that and much more: an ordinary president. Forgotten were his fraudulent re-election and that of a constituent assembly invented to confiscate, along with an abject and obsequious supreme court, the legitimate powers of a National Assembly with an opposition majority. Likewise, the corruption, extortion and confiscations that have fed the new oligarchy that has taken over power are made invisible.
Very smug, he invades the media to comment on innocuous topics or to invent anything to avoid his responsibilities. Meanwhile, the country is suffering deep and terrible suffering that should be addressed resolutely and urgently. He announces one or another decision, as if the State that he has so painstakingly destroyed had the real capacity to attend to the aforementioned matters. At a time when the Summit of the Americas is taking place in Los Angeles, California, it occurs to him to visit the Turkey of the autocrat Erdogan. Of course, he buys the gold illegally plundered, with enormous environmental damage, by his hosts in Guayana. In addition, he was expressly excluded from the American appointment for directing a dictatorship. He slips her. As if nothing happened, he then appears, along with his wife and members of a delegation making a stopover in Algeria to speak in generalities about the need for a multipolar world. He emerges from time to time in Iran, a seasoned partner in getting around US sanctions. But it’s not a scheduled state tour. They are one of the few incursions that can be allowed without applying the arrest warrant for drug trafficking and other crimes, issued by the US Attorney’s Office. That doesn’t go with him, he would like to pretend. To add to the absurdity, a news item reports that the World Boxing Association had named him “honorary champion.” And no, he was not a joke for having knocked out a once healthy country. It was real news! Why should we suspect shady dealings?
But all of the above slips to the chavomaduristas. The country belongs to them, as simple as that. Belongs to them. They took it because it was “bequeathed” to them by the Liberator in the person of Hugo Chávez. Therefore, they are above all claims. In addition, after a journey through the desert forced by imperialism, Venezuela finally “settled”! This is demonstrated by the (supposed) reactivation of the economy, businesses full of imported goods, modern construction in eastern Caracas and the reappearance of agricultural production in markets. It is even being exported.
Without us noticing, a new narrative has been creeping in in which Maduro and his people do not appear as the bad guys at all. Gone are the rants about a perverse “21st century socialism” and, even more so, the claims to extend the powers of the State with new confiscations or investments in “revolutionary” projects. The dollars that circulate have managed to rejuvenate the image of Maduro. Therefore, international sanctions and criminal investigations against them should be suspended, as they hinder the process of “normalization” undertaken.
Indeed, this narrative is unworthy. But the opposition must not make the mistake of reducing its action to denying these allegations. The economy will tend to continue growing for the basic reason that the country has untapped potential, suffocated during so many years of Chavista oppression, which cannot stop sprouting when it is offered the slightest opportunity to express itself. It makes no sense to oppose the findings that are made in this regard. Of course, in the country of arbitrariness, any occurrence of one of the troglodytes who rule can end a business.
It is up to the democratic forces to project an alternative Venezuela, which gives real content to the expectations of the people, connecting them with the essential changes to conquer so that they can become a reality. We insist on the importance of the economic, but with a narrative that goes beyond the usual stabilization proposals and the reforms to be undertaken. It must be built from the needs of security, financing, support, efficient public services and, above all, guarantees so that people or companies can see their productive or commercial efforts bear fruit and enjoy a dignified, quality life. The struggle to improve the living conditions of the population will have, as a logical consequence, to claim rights and demand a return to the constitutional order. It would be the foundation of a political platform that contributes to the unification of the opposition forces in their struggle to conquer the conditions for the desired change. Likewise, it will contribute to stripping away the artificiality of Maduro’s heralded “normalization”, without guarantees, incapable of fostering productive investment and subject to the whims that may occur to him or his relatives when the situation becomes more difficult for them.
It is notorious that, beneath the realm of fantasies that Maduro seeks to project, lies the same world of terror to which we have become accustomed. He makes some young people disappear for a few days who were honoring a murdered boy for claiming his rights, Neomar Lander, and accuses them of “incitement to hatred and conspiracy to commit crimes.” He encourages his fascist gangs to attack Juan Guaidó who is on tour in the interior. He unjustly keeps Javier Tarazona, director of the NGO Fundaredes, who had denounced human rights violations in border states, imprisoned; Roland Carreño, spokesman for the Voluntad Popular party, and many more. Political prisoners on a whim. Jorge Rodríguez rivals the one with the mallet by threatening a banker and raises nonsense to boycott the chances of resuming negotiations in Mexico. And the corrupt military, as always, are very present with their extortions, rattles and confiscations. Meanwhile, as stated in the report by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, Venezuela exhibits one of the worst health data on the continent. But since the government stopped publishing figures on the matter for years, the problem does not exist. The neo-fascism of chavomadurismo is still alive and kicking.
As unusual and outrageous as it may be to verify that the worst government in the history of Venezuela is still in power – so calm, as if it had not broken a plate – it is not enough to demand, Maduro go now! Because what they have been effective at, with the help of the Castro dictatorship and the errors of the opposition parties, is in destroying hopes of change and projecting the idea that they are here to stay. Therefore, it is better to accept the “normalization” in progress. The great challenge for the democratic forces is, then, to overcome this kind of fatality and project a clear and real option for change. To do this, it is necessary to build a force capable of collecting the aspirations for improvement of the great majority so that they make the struggles for the required changes their own and mobilize behind a political platform that makes this the center of their action. An alternative narrative, that inspires confidence because it is backed by serious proposals, connected with the realities of the people, must develop the necessary muscles to conquer these changes.
With such support, it may make sense to negotiate with the government, with the consent of the countries that have imposed them, the reconsideration of some sanctions, always against concrete, enforceable advances.
The regime’s claim to show that things are improving can serve, paradoxically, to strengthen the democratic option. How has it happened in so many countries, people will ask, and why is it not my turn? That is where there should be a clear response from the democratic forces, accompanied by the actions required to achieve the essential changes.
