Winners of elections in Venezuela -Gonzalez Urrutia & Machado- must name and activate a transition team

By: Carlos Sánchez Berzaín - 08/10/2024

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With the leadership of Maria Corina Machado, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is the President-Elect of Venezuela after defeating dictator Nicolas Maduro, applying the extraordinary strategy of defeating him in his own scenario with the dictatorship’s rules. Gonzalez Urrutia must assume Venezuela’s presidency this upcoming 10th of January and what must happen during this time is to establish a transition team with the leader of his campaign, Maria Corina Machado in command, to determine the state and condition of the country they will receive and the urgent measures that must be taken.

The results of the past 28th of July’s elections (28-J) are no longer debatable, the absurd electoral fraud with which Nicolas Maduro pretended to mock the popular sovereign will of the Venezuelan nation, has been duly registered. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is recognized as the President-Elect of Venezuela by the people and democratic countries from throughout the world. At this moment, we are at the cross-roads of the transition from dictatorship to a democratic government, a period leading up to the 10th of January of 2025 that is compliant with the regime’s own electoral agenda and now it becomes necessary to constrain those in power to abide by their own agenda.

In efforts to prevent the turning-over of the government that has already been lost by the dictatorship, the international intervention that sustains Maduro operates internally using State-terrorism and increased violence that only generate the acceleration of its irreversible international defeat.

To take away the opposition’s operational capability and remove the victorious leadership, transnational organized crime’s strategy consists of terrorizing the population and figuratively beheading it, and towards that end commits assassinations, imprisonment, torture, persecution, and the exile of important opposition members who are part of the authors of the electoral triumph. In a scenario of prevailing State-terrorism, Venezuelan peoples cannot win but they can win in the initiatives of executing the 28-J triumph, something that Maria Corina refers to as “time to collect.”

The 28-J elections were preceded by vast and recurrent international negotiations with extreme concessions granted to the dictatorship for it to hold elections under its own rigging. The dictatorship set the dates, the conditions, the candidates, the electoral officials who it could manipulate, chose international observers, repressed, and committed crimes, but even with all of those lop-sided advantages was not able to win and could not execute a fraudulent election even with minimum elements of credibility.

Internally, the weakness and disarray of the regime is so extreme that Maduro had to turn-over the political control and repression to his greatest internal enemy Diosdado Cabello, the same culprit who -along with Cuba- deceived everyone in the succession following the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013.

Now, in the agenda imposed by the dictatorship, we are in the period of time of the transition for the government’s turn-over this upcoming 10th of January and this must be executed without State-terrorism. The peaceful civil resistance must be complemented by the initiatives that emerged from the 28-J victory, this means to move forward in the agenda to effectively control the country and its international relations with the same international actors who granted concessions for the elections.

The time period between the electoral triumph and the 10th of January cannot continue to be a period of unbridled and unpunished crime perpetrated by the losers, it cannot be a time that only produces declarations and solidarity protests. It must assume its own nature of being a “transition period” for the turn-over of Venezuela’s presidency and for that to happen it urges the winning opposition to name its “transition team” headed by Maria Corina Machado and comprised by groups of experts in the main areas of government.

The transition team of the President-Elect should have teams made-up by distinguished personalities who are either in or outside of Venezuela in the areas of Foreign Affairs, Defense, the Interior or Government, Economy, Oil, Education, and more… Since Venezuela’s constitution grants the president the empowerment of “setting the number, organization, and competency of ministries and other organizations of the National Public Administration, as well as the organization and functioning of the Council of Ministers…” It is very important to have an understanding and to know how the new government will function that could include a Prime Minister and a different structure or organization.

Once the transition team has been created, the dictatorship will be totally exposed in its weakness and defeat. If the transition team’s Foreign Affairs component assumes the interaction with democracies from throughout the world, we shall have organized actions that will be lethal for the dictatorship. If the transition’s team Economy group begins to learn about the economic interactions, financial loans and debentures, and other aspects with the main counterparts of Venezuela, we will see the alleged total control of the dictatorship fall to the ground. When the transition team’s Defense component begins to contact the Hierarchy and Chain of Command, and different levels of military institutions, we will have exposed the transnational organized crime’s intervention and the true value of men and women of the Venezuelan Armed Forces.

*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».