Dear George,
While, I certainly appreciate diverse point of views, and believe in freedom of speech, I believe your latest article on Aljazeera
is extremely biased, almost looking like propaganda, I, as many other Venezuelans, had fled the country, which, sadly, is a trend now,
what's not news, is that, we're living under the "the law of the jungle", where there is scarcity of everything that many people take for
granted, a place where, with your hard work is not compensated at all, unable to pay for trivialities like housing, luxuries like eating,
where you cannot even be sure you'll return back home after a long day of work.
These reasons have driven people out to the streets, not Guaido, not the opposing parties, I agree that Guaido doesn't necessarily represent
me, he just represents the hunger, the lack of medicaments, the lack of opportunities, and the struggling desire of the people to move on,
to live a life, not just survive on a day by day basis.
Now, back to your article, what he is doing is completely legal, and I can explain you why;
Venezuela, like most countries out there, has 3 mayor powers, this was made in order to avoid reckless laws, however, when you see these
powers working as one, leading to a waste of resources, bad management, bad international deals, and suddenly, a new elite raises, new
oligarchy is formed, you can easily smell the reek of corruption in the air.
According to the law, the only way to invoke a change of constitution, would be by National Constituent Assembly, the same must be voted
via a referendum (like it happened before, like the most recent brexit), this crucial step was omitted, and the Assembly (referred as ANC for
its Castillian counterpart), and the same was built, the National Electoral Council (CNE) is the only authority capable of calling elections,
which, wasn't the case (just like the didn't call for the referendum to revoke him, a while back), the elections were rushed, and,
most of the opposing parties were unable to participate, most of their candidates were thrown to jail, the electorate book were not updated,
rendering a huge portion of the population unable and unwilling to vote, his (Maduro) swear in on this past Jan 10th, is, in fact, ilegal, no matter how you look at it, last elections held, were for the parliament, which, he soon nullified, in order to create a parallel parliament, basically, he (Maduro) is president, because he says so.
For all the reasons described above, and some others I am sure I am missing, I'd like to ask you, who's attempting the real coup? and,
how would this be fixed with a popular vote? in 2013 there were rumours of a fraud, I'll just leave it as they are, rumours; after the
Parliament was lost to the government, there hasn't really been a transparent voting.
The article 233 is made to cover a power vacuum, although, it doesn't explicitly states about an ilegal president, it definitely is a valid
interpretation, calling him "Self-proclaimed" is just a tasteless joke.
The goal, as described by them (congressmen), is to restore an already devastated Venezuela, not to establish a new tyranny, after all, Guaido is supposed to be just a transition president.
I am not going to enter into international support, like everyone else, they have their own interests and reasons to
justify their supporting party, not that I like it, but, at least there seems to be some hope now for a change to the right direction.
(this will just overextend this paper more than I'd like, and it is worthy of a different discussion)
This open letter is not meant to throw fanatism at your face, apologies if that's the impression it gave, I just wanted to counter-argument
your article in response, things are never black and white.
Best regards;
