Constitutional president and vice-president of Venezuela must fulfill the people’s mandate

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 11/02/2025

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Living under an electoral system of dictatorship, they told Venezuelans that it was possible to recover their freedom, they convinced them that if they mobilized, they would defeat the tyranny, they motivated them to risk their lives in exchange for freedom, and the people overcame their fear and on 28 July of 2024 expressed their sovereign will by which, and under the leadership of Maria Corina Machado, they elected Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia as President of Venezuela. The people have done their part and now expect the President and Vice-President of Venezuela to fulfill their sovereign, popular mandate.

The objective, legal, and true reality is that Venezuela today has a Constitutional President whose name is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who won the election and publicly assumed the responsibility to designate as Venezuela’s Vice-President, the leader of the liberation feat and electoral victory, Maria Corina Machado. What is baffling, beyond comprehension, is that to this date Gonzalez Urrutia has not been sworn-in and has not proceeded to immediately form the government with the leader who took him to that position.

Up to the 9th of January of 2025, one day before the date for the official swearing-in of Venezuela’s President-Elect Gonzalez Urrutia, the triumphant opposition had the push and had defeated Nicolas Maduro, his dictatorship and his 21st Century Socialism, successive and resoundingly. Gonzalez publicly declared that he would assume the presidency of Venezuela, but the dictatorship prevented that from happening by using State-terrorism to perpetrate the usurpation of the popular sovereign will and turn Venezuela into a country occupied by a criminal/military group.

To fulfill the popular mandate Gonzalez was, and is, compelled to swear-in as Constitutional President, thus assuming the sovereign representation of Venezuela. Not having done that up to now, and while he visits democratic countries, he is leaving an institutional void and allowing for the usurpation to advance in supplanting Venezuela’s representation before other governments and relevant international organizations. Moreover, he is preventing the swearing-in of the Executive Vice-President of Venezuela as mandated by Article 238 of Venezuela’s constitution.

Everyone knows -but is worth reminding everyone- that Gonzalez is the formal substitution of Maria Corina Machado because she was unfairly and illegally disqualified by the dictatorship. Machado with her credibility and leadership was able to endorse the greater part of her popular backing for Gonzalez to receive over 67% of the votes in the elections. Had she not gotten disqualified by the regime, she would have been the President-Elect and without Machado’s conversion of Gonzalez as the candidate postulated by Machado, he would have not ever obtained the electoral victory.

The objective was and still is to remove the dictatorship. If anyone has stepped up to the challenge, the Venezuelan peoples with Machado have, they have done so with “blood, sweat, and tears,” challenged and defeated the State-terrorism, the crimes against humanity, and suffer the criminal/military occupation of their homeland.

The constitutional President and Vice-President of Venezuela are Gonzalez and Machado but they cannot continue without initiative while the criminal/military organization consolidates their occupation and usurps Venezuela’s international representation. If the roadmap is not for the President-Elect to swear-in as Constitutional President and designate the Executive Vice-President, what is the solution? What roadmap enables the people to cash-in on their electoral victory and liberate the nation? Let there be; no more dialogues, international work-tables, non-reappearance of the functional opposition and para-dictatorial governments that only help towards the perpetuation of the infamy!

This is why through the legal and political way -as long as there is no better alternative implemented- Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia must assume by swearing-in as the Constitutional President of Venezuela and immediately thereafter designate Maria Corina Machado as Executive Vice-President of Venezuela. There is no formal pretext to prevent this, neither the place, nor the concept of territory, nor the date, nor who administers the oath because, simply stated, the nature of the sovereign mandate is not conditioned to the ways 21st Century Socialism manipulates and has trapped the triumphant leadership.

If María Corina Machado must exit from Venezuela for Gonzalez to swear-in and assume as the Constitutional President, and her as the Executive Vice-President of Venezuela, this must be done, because she could then return to her country -even clandestinely- as Vice-President, with greater authority, popular credibility, and impact against the usurpers.

Doing nothing is not an option, neither is the repetition of arguments of the already won electoral campaign. To expect the international community, or some foreign government to solve this matter, or to accept “failure” is neither an option. The mandate of the Venezuelan people who cast their votes for Gonzalez because Machado asked them to do so, must be fulfilled. It is high time for the Constitutional President and Vice-President of Venezuela to meet the people’s mandate by assuming the power they have been conferred.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».