The dictatorship has formalized what was an open secret. It has announced the advance of the presidential election, which must be held in 2018, in order to elect the president of the Republic for the constitutional term that should begin on January 10, 2019.
The regime seeks to take advantage of the Venezuelan opposition's state of dispersion, exhaustion, confrontation and antagonism, and the consequent state of social deception and anomie that affects the citizenry. He also wants to take advantage of the brutal human stampede that is taking place, and that has pushed some four million compatriots to other latitudes.
After having stolen the recall referendum, having imposed by force of the state apparatus, an unconstitutional and illegitimate puppet assembly, with which to give its particular parliament, seeks to complete the establishment of a definitive dictatorship.
They seek to take us to a political and electoral ambush, which we can revert in a forceful way, if each and every one of Venezuelans, and especially those who work in the field of politics, we put aside legitimate aspirations, excessive ambitions, interests personal, group or supporters.
Given the pretense of the electoral ambush, there are those who believe that we should not confront it.
They think that we should refrain from attending the election, because in this way we will be validating the attempt of fraud that the dictatorship has in plans to develop.
They consider that having received the advance of the election an almost global refusal of the international community, it would be almost that a treacherous heresy would attend the process. But, in addition, they consider that concurring would immediately legitimize the fraudulent and illegitimate National Constituent Assembly, for having been the entity from which the decision of the convocation began.
It is logical that we all reject the advancement of the presidential election. The objective of the red clique is to take advantage of the current state of crisis presented by the opposition, as well as to avoid further deterioration of its political floor, as a consequence of its disastrous and corrupt government management.
To reject, to censure the advancement of the process, to occur in the middle of a process of political negotiation, doing it unilaterally, without guaranteeing any change in the electoral and political conditions, can not mean that we are paralyzed in the political action, and in the struggle for achieving democratic restraint.
It does not make sense to limit ourselves to a mere rejection. To a paralyzing and inhibiting questioning. To an immediate call to abstention. And, in addition, to a disqualification advanced to all of us who think it is a mistake to abandon the field of the electoral struggle, as it is a mistake to renounce and abandon other schemes of struggle, which can open the way to a restoration of the rule of law.
Abstention has proven to be over and over again its inefficiency. Even in the vitiated processes, participation is important, because it allows, from the same process, to document and denounce the vices, frauds and tricks.
The participation, in addition, allows to activate other political and legal processes, national and international, that would not be possible to impel them without the concretion of the electoral crime.
Consequently, it is neither politically nor ethically correct to leave the electoral field to the dictatorship.
It is necessary to react quickly and with a sense of greatness to the challenge that the dictatorship places before us.
As I pointed out in my column on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, it is "the time of detachment". It is time to understand that we are not in a democracy, and that it is not the time for the healthy competition of the parties and leaders. That it is not time for vanity or political prequalification. Much less is it time for personal ambitions, or for imposing new political hegemonies.
The Venezuelan homeland suffers the most dramatic crisis, in at least a century of its history.
It is, consequently, the hour of urgency, of the salvation of the nation, of true patriotism.
Although some may not believe it, we have time to take the word of the dictatorship, to rearticulate the political and spiritual unity of the nation, and to defeat it politically and electorally.
That then the ruling narco clique steals the election, and by blood and fire remains in power, it is another matter. This will generate new processes internally and internationally. But first we must cross that river, and on that bridge of the presidential election, make that ignorance of the popular will come true.
And before we stop at the important legal, political and technical considerations regarding the presidential process and its illegal convocation, produce unity and start the organic and inorganic reserves of the country, to face the challenge that lies ahead.
For those of us who believe in democracy, it is certainly important to think about the legality of the call. Highlight the illegitimacy of the convening organ, the illegality of the advance of the date, and other edges of the legality of an electoral process of that nature.
But, in a dictatorship, that does not produce a direct political effect.
The thesis is false that to participate in that election legitimizes the fraudulent Constituent Assembly, because the dictatorship used it to order its convocation. We all understand that the Government, CNE, TSJ, Prosecutor's Office, Comptroller's Office and ANC are the same entity, they are the dictatorship.
It would have been as if they had been summoned by a judgment of the TSJ or by an act of the CNE.
Participate or validate the dictatorship or give legitimacy to the fraudulent assembly.
The Pinochet dictatorship never gained legitimacy because it called a plebiscite to determine its permanence in power. Nor will Maduro's dictatorship gain legitimacy because, using the constituent headship, it intends to play ahead.
Nor is it contrary to international solidarity to go to the presidential election. Nor does our denunciation of illegality, abuse and advantage lose force.
We must go because we are in a state of necessity, because we have only one weapon to face barbarism: the vote.
Others think that there is no time for the country to meet the unique and unitary candidate we must present.
A friend former governor and former president, I argued last December that a well-known and popular candidate was required.
I supported him that a single consensus candidate was needed. If his name was not yet popular to the citizenship, it would be known almost immediately to his presentation.
The Venezuelan people know that there is no time for a dense debate and for a proper campaign of democracy.
What we are really going to have is a plebiscite.
Consequently, it is urgent to articulate unity, define the electoral platform and launch ourselves to the struggle to amalgamate the country. In parallel, we will demand, fight and demand, in all areas and scenarios, the transparency that a process of this nature requires. To paralyze ourselves in a debate of another kind is to give the country to the red clique that has destroyed us.
