“Voting for another option in the Process[1] that isn't the government isn't a betrayal”
Originally published at: http://www.aporrea.org/ideologia/n275968.htmlBy: Carlos Carcione and Lucero Benítez - Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide) | Tuesday, 18/08/2015 10:59 AM | Printable version
As we announced in the interview carried out with Professor Héctor Navarro, in this submission we present an interview carried out with Ana Elisa Osorio. Doctor, Deputy of Latin American Parliament, ex-minister of President Chávez, ex-member of the national leadership of the PSUV[3]. Remembered for her valiant attitude confronting the coup d'etat in April 2002. Today in the struggle against corruption, she is part of the Platform for a Public and Citizen Audit against Embezzlement from the Nation.
How do you evaluate the current situation, from the point of view of the people that have been accompanying the revolutionary process?
Ana Elisa Osorio: We are currently passing through a difficult, complex situation, in which, that from my point of view there is a breakdown of the morale of the people in relations to principles.
In that sense, I believe that this is the worst crisis that we have dealt with in the last forty years. In previous crises nobody lost morale, nobody gave up losing morale faced with the difficult moments like the coup d'etat or the oil strike-sabotage. In contrast to previous crises, the people now don't feel supported in the difficulties. We have never reached the situation in which we are today. The government already seems less than what it was previously.
Of course there are aspects of this crisis that are objective, among them are the economic elements like inflation, like smuggling. But the other aspect of the crisis is more subjective, it is a crisis that hits morale and public sentiment.
The revolution remains in these moments only in the hearts and minds of the people. A people that, by the way, in the midst of all of this situation is confused.
Of course, not all the issues that influence the crisis are exogenous. The administration of foreign currency is a black box, for example. Also there are objective conditions for all the corrupt people in the government at the moment. There is currency flight, and also there are multiple exchange rates, that influence everything.
There are great shortages, and many of the achievements of the process have deteriorated a lot, above all in the area of food products, the food missions. In the area of health, there has been a mistaken direction of no having an orientation to primary healthcare, what they have made the hospitals do to themselves, they might collapse at the moment, or that we might have technology in the healthcare area that is being underutilised, because it wasn't planned at the level of the necessities of the people.
During these years there was a redistribution of the income that translated into important achievements. But in this moment I consider that we are going back to the situation before Chávez.
Based on this and returning to the issue of the elections, I see that in these upcoming elections for the National Assembly there is Chavista[4] discontent that doesn't want to vote for the government nor the MUD[5]. I see that there is “neither-nor” feeling that comes from the people that feel a betrayal of the Chávez model, and that because of that nowadays they are “neither-nor”.
The polls say that we are losing, and it would be terrible that the right might achieve the majority in the National Assembly given that it can get rid everything that remains of the revolutionary process. Therefore there must be a policy for those who don't want to turn out to vote.
Who benefits from the situation of the dollar?
AEO: There is bad management and corruption of the public funds and the foreign currency that enters the country, around which different actors are connected.
On the one hand there is a corrupt national bourgeoisie that doesn't produce anything, and that has its counterpart, that are the people that are in the organisations that have do the negotiations for the awarding of foreign currency to that sector, like CENCOEX[6].
If that counterpart didn't exist inside of those organisations, everything that is happening wouldn't be happening. When we ask ourselves to whom and how the currency is handed over, we see that there is a great degree of complicity inside those organisations. But the issue of corruption related to foreign currency goes both ways, on one side by those who request the dollars and on the other side by those who award them.
That has led us to the situation we are in currently of bankruptcy due to a bad administration of the foreign currency coming from the oil income, not due to a crisis like that of the coup d’etat on the 11th April or that of the oil strike.
Returning to the electoral theme, what do you think about the elimination of direct voting for the representatives of Venezuela to Parlatino?
AEO: It surprised us all the change announced in the previous months with respect to the method of selecting the deputies to Parlatino. In that sense, it might mean that in contrast to what some say, the treaty that Venezuela signed about Parlatino isn't violated, careful with this. Nevertheless, it is important to know that in Venezuela we were pioneers in electing our representatives to this organisation, in the framework of protagonist and participative democracy expressed in our Constitution.
The measure brings the discontent of all the deputies to Parlatino, but not all of them have made statements in that respect. The opposition have said it and I have said it myself. The rest haven't expressed it due to a question misunderstood discipline. I'm not saying that I don't believe in discipline, because I firmly do believe in it, the question is in that that fact represents a step backward for protagonist and participative democracy.
To the contrary of what has been decided here, at the moment there other countries in which that move to selecting by popular vote the representatives to Parlatino, like in Boliva and Ecuador.
And about the recent ruling of the CNE[7] that demands gender equality for all the lists of candidates?
AEO: The CNE on other occasions had named that resolution, and this year it has done it, only that from my point of view, it has done it at a bad time, that is to say, after the primary elections have happened, and after many candidatures have been defined.
I agree with the question of parity. The CNE makes a positive discrimination, as the representation of women to the National Assembly is very small. Due to which it is necessary, in the sense of making that women project themselves further into the spaces of public life, further than their domestic sphere of existence, in the community.
What I believe is incorrect about this measure is doing it at the wrong time. And that it is applied only to the small parties, and not to the big ones like MUD or PSUV. In both sectors there are more men than women as candidates.
Then, the CNE is permissive with them and not with the rest? It represents a discriminatory and anti-democratic fact. These decisions of the CNE at the wrong time, aren’t in of keeping with a trajectory with respect to what it has meant and done in the past.
What is the policy to get the neither-nor people to participate electorally?
AEO: I believe that one option is looking to the coordination among all the so-called small parties of the process, if there was a third party or third option that emerges from the revolution, like that, from my point of view, is the solution.
On something I insist, and it is that the way isn't abstention. I believe in joining to other parties of the process, and in the invalid vote as an alternative.
It also must be clear that voting for another option in the process that isn't the government isn't betrayal. It is the high government that betrays Chávez, when they don't contain the problems when they have a solution.
We live in a society that it becoming sick, and it isn't solving in a strong way the things, that isn't by the way of force, it is with a coherent government.
In Venezuela we had far exceeded the “every man for himself” mentality, a situation that we are lamentably returning to...
Definitively, we need a leadership that helps to reverse this situation.
[1] The Bolivarian revolutionary process
[2] Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), is a regional, permanent organization composed by the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that was created in 1964. It is a consultative assembly similar to the early European Parliament.[1] Currently the institution is being considered to become the legislative organ of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
[3] United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the main party of government supporting the revolutionary process
[4] People that are supportive of policies and politics of Hugo Chávez
[5] Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (Democratic Unity Roundtable; MUD), the electoral coalition of right-wing Venezuelan opposition parties.
[6] National Bureau for Exterior Commerce that issues foreign currency for trade.
[7] Venezuelan National Electoral Council
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