The “parallel charges” created by Chavismo would remain after Sunday’s elections

The promise of the illegitimate Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, to eliminate after the regional and local elections on Sunday the parallel entity in states ruled by opponents, which he himself has called “protector”, is in question due to the Communal Cities bill, which contemplates granting mayors powers to leaders of communes.

The commitment was acquired on June 28 by the successor of Hugo Chávez, who has appointed at his disposal the “protectors”, authorities parallel to those chosen through elections to govern states and municipalities and that the Executive appoints in a manner. discretionary.

The provisions have been applied in various entities where the authorities are in opposition, such as the case of the states of Mérida or Táchira, which have been affected, according to their legally elected governors, due to the lack of support from the central Administration, which grants responsibilities and budgets to the “protectors.”

The figure of the “protectorate” is not contemplated in the Constitution.

According to the lawyer and professor of Constitutional Political Theory Gustavo Manzo, there is no legal or legal basis to support the appointment of this figure.

Article 4 of the Magna Carta establishes that Venezuela It is a “decentralized Federal State”, while 5 indicates that sovereignty resides “non-transferable” in the people, who exercises it, indirectly, through suffrage.

In this sense, Manzo argued that the appointment of these so-called protectors is an element of “authoritarianism.”

“When the Maduro Administration fails to win through elections or when it requires, in some way, to exercise power, there they will appoint a protector,” said Manzo, who recalled that this figure was also recently appointed in the Venezuela’s main university, directed by an academic critical of the Government.

Last September, Maduro hesitated over the decision to eliminate the so-called protectors, noting that he was “sorry” because, in his opinion, the opposition governors are absent, but finally said that the measure would be maintained because he had committed to it.

The guarantees of the promise

The promise, however, does not seem to be a guarantee that the autonomy of elected regional and local institutions will be respected, regardless of what the result is on Sunday, since the Communal Cities bill, which would be applied in a similar way to the protectorates, but in this case, in mayoralties, it has been under discussion for months.

The legislation, according to experts and more than 100 Venezuelan NGOs that reject it, seeks to change the political-territorial distribution of Venezuela by granting power and functions of governors or mayors to those who rule these “cities”.

“It really raises a new way of seeing, of Venezuelan political, territorial and economic organization, the way money is distributed, the powers, the way the budget is distributed, how it is spent,” explained Manzo.

Article 5 of the legislation under discussion indicates that the “fundamental” purpose of the “Communal City” is the “full development of participatory, protagonist democracy” for the “formation and exercise of government by the communes.”

And he explains that the way to achieve this exercise of Government is through “the administration and management of the competences developed or transferred to it, the establishment of norms of coexistence and socialization, and territorial legislative mechanisms and social control for transit towards socialist society ”.

But, in addition, in 56 it is indicated that the entities of the State and “territorial political entities” should “promote the process of transfer to the communes of the Communal Cities”, the “management and administration of services, activities, goods and resources” .

The law is part of the so-called “Plan of the Homeland” project of Maduro, who defends that his way of governing is by granting power to the people, although scholars of the matter see in these projects promoted by the ruling party a way to extend or centralize the power of the agent.

So, in Manzo’s opinion, the November 21 elections can be a “way to make up” or “nuance” the political scene, because what the ruling Chavismo seeks is to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, a This idea dates back to 2007, when the late President Hugo Chávez promoted a constitutional reform that was rejected in a referendum.