By Elias Jaua Milano – Oct 11, 2020
These days I feel much more pride in being Chavista. According to one version, which we never knew whether it was official or not, of the Anti-Blockade Law, an intense debate was opened where militants, journalists, academics and constituents demanded explanations; they stood in defense of the validity of the 1999 Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as the highest law of the Republic, and they asserted a fundamental principle of the Chávez Revolution, public property as the patrimony of the Nation. As we had not seen in long time, important Chavista factors were questioned and challenged with courage and passionate patriotism, in favor of the principles that sustain the Bolivarian and Chavista project. Congratulations!
However, exaggerations and disqualifications from both sides were not lacking in the debate. I must say, it is unfair to suggest that President Nicolás Maduro is going to surrender. The president is a decision maker who has to govern in asphyxiating conditions and is trying to find room to maneuver with this Law. The man and his circumstances. It is necessary to understand it.
But it is also unfair and very shallow to classify the brave voices that publicly exposed their doubts or disagreements with the legal draft that circulated, as traitors or disloyal to President Maduro. It is a crude blackmail which no longer works. On the contrary, what is required is to open authentic spaces for internal debate where the changes that are taking place in the model built with Chávez are being elaborated on as a result of current circumstances.
Finally, once approved, the text of the Anti-Blockade Law was published. I highlight as important that in the presentation of the chapters by some constituents in the session that was finally televised, it has been clearly ratified, among other principles, that the 1999 Constitution is the highest standard of the legal system, that is, the so-called constituent laws are not superior to the Magna Carta, nor can they contravene it or modify it.
Secondly, it was ensured, in those speeches, that Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) will not be privatized and that we will not renounce full sovereignty over our hydrocarbons and other natural resources. It is very important that this has been said in plenary, since in the minutes the spirit of the constituents was reflected, becoming a source of law for future legal proceedings.
Regarding the text of the Law, it must be recognized that many of its articles are necessary instruments so that the National Executive can maneuver in the midst of the criminal financial and commercial siege that has been illegally imposed on us, in order to try to restore the rights of the population to wages, food and services.
There are articles, such as 26, 27 and 29, among others of the aforementioned law, that empower the government to change the administration and management regime of public companies, and to facilitate and promote the participation of the private sector in them, and throughout the economy.
In this regard, we will have to wait to see the concrete plans, to assess whether they point, as it seems, to a change in one of the foundations of Chavismo: the safeguarding of national property in the hands of the State. It is necessary to say that Chavismo has always programmatically recognized the role of private enterprise, but without undermining public property or the role of the State in the economy.
In conclusion, this debate compelled by the force of opinion has made it possible to demonstrate the position of broad sectors of Chavismo willing to defend the founding values of the Bolivarian Revolution and the historical banners of the patriotic sectors, of the left and of the revolutionary popular movement In Venezuela.
Oil nationalism, public ownership of our assets, and our Bolivarian Constitution of 1999, are banners that we will never lower, and that, beyond the circumstances that foreign aggression imposes on us today, tomorrow will be raised in the wind as we did with Commander Chávez leading.
My appreciation to the brave colleagues who showed their faces and cheered to motivate this debate. They did not get intimidated by the bad conscience of those who have no arguments, other than disqualification, crude blackmail and arrogant mockery.
Those who are primarily responsible for the unity of a political project are those who direct it. Humility, the correct methods of leadership, the will to convince rather than impose, are the keys to maintaining united and moralized a force that faces the most serious foreign aggression in modern times.
Little by little, step by step, the path is opening on the fields, comrades.
There is no defeated people!
Chavez lives, the struggle continues!
Hasta la victoria siempre!
Featured image: PDVSA oil workers. File photo.
Translation: OT/JRE
Elias Jaua Milano
Elías José Jaua Milano is a Venezuelan politician and former university professor who served as Vice President of Venezuela from January 2010 to October 2012.He was Minister of Foreign Affairs since January 2013. Jaua obtained a Sociology degree from the Central University of Venezuela. In 2000 he was part of the Comisión Legislativa Nacional and Minister of the Secretaría de la Presidencia from 2000 to 2001.
He was nominated as Venezuelan Ambassador to Argentina in 2002. Jaua served as Minister of Agriculture in President Hugo Chávez's government before being appointed as Vice-President in January 2010, while remaining Minister of Agriculture. On 15 December 2011, following a major reshuffle of the Venezuelan political leadership, President Chávez proposed Jaua to be the PSUV candidate for governor of the state of Miranda (reported in El Universal).
He resigned the vice presidency on 13 October 2012 to compete in the election and was replaced by Nicolás Maduro. He lost the election on 16 December 2012 to the former governor Henrique Capriles who had stepped down in June 2012 to unsuccessfully challenge Hugo Chávez for President. Jaua succeeded Nicolás Maduro as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 15 January 2013.
