Caracas Chronicles

Back in 2021, I gave my take on which were the most pressing institutional changes that a new government ought to undertake if (or when, if you’re a thorough optimist) the dictatorship ruling Venezuela is finally ousted from power. That year, the mere idea of regime change seemed like a distant spark of hope. Now, there is actually a non-Chavista President-elect who according to the Constitution should take his oath of office next January. How is that going to happen? Will it happen indeed? No idea. But we can think about the day after, what can we do to help rebuild our wasted country if the goal is achieved.

There are pressing economic and social measures to be taken by a new government, but I’m going to focus on institutional reforms, the core of any durable and sustainable change. 

Apart from demilitarizing the state apparatus, initiating a judicial reform that begins with the Supreme Court, optimizing bureaucracy, and giving autonomy back to federal states (all of which I wrote about back in ‘21), an Edmundo González Urrutia administration should undertake the following reforms.

First, formalize transition

The initial step should be to acknowledge the new government’s transitional nature. That administration must act as a bridge between what exists today and what Venezuela needs to become. It has to enable the transformation of the country from the authoritarian police state crossbred with a disarrayed, absent and almost failed state that it is, to a normal, modern, and functioning democracy.

In order to do so, the character of a true transition must be embraced: they are short, shocking, transformative and they lay the foundations for what comes next. In that sense, and despite having been elected for a six-year term, the main parties must pact that González will resign after an agreed-upon timeframe (probably one to two years). This becomes even more urgent due to the President’s age. 

Given that such a transitional government will be urged to take emergency measures and reforms, be they social, economic or institutional in nature, the limited term would help to mitigate the impact of their more-than-likely shocking aftereffects. A six-year administration that slowly undertakes reforms that are imperative but have painful effects, or take too much time to show any effect, is vulnerable to people’s impatience, and someone could take advantage of that. Instead, if the most dramatic reforms are made during a short transition, the next full-fledged government would have an intact political capital and much margin to act freely, and with a country in an already improving health. You can always blame the transition for what goes wrong, not exactly according to plan or for not living up to expectations.

The character of a true transition must be embraced: they are short, shocking, transformative and they lay the foundations for what comes next.

To further protect a González Urrutia-led transition, one of the first measures his administration ought to take is a very painful—and even disgusting—but still necessary one: pardoning those major Chavista figures who would enable a transfer of power but who could jeopardize the stability of the new democratic government, on the condition that they willingly resign (yes, I’m talking about the Supreme Court justices, National Electoral Council board of directors, Attorney General, Comptroller General and Ombudsman).

I emphasize that this must be an agreement that has to be made previously to the transfer of power, not a purge à la Carmona Estanga that could sink the country into a new abyss. This also has to be done with the assistance of the current Chavista National Assembly, which means its recognition by the new government, and the acknowledgment that for a while, until the current legislature expires—although it would be preferable if the legislative election due next year is held in its early months—, it will have to rule with parliamentarian opposition and having to constantly negotiate and transact with it, especially to name the new heads of the constitutional high institutions that would be left vacant. Dissolving the National Assembly as it was done during the 2002 coup d’état against Chávez isn’t an option, it would be suicidal. Even despite the fact that the current legislature lacks any legitimacy.  

This is probably the only way a transition can take place in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and a González Urrutia administration can consolidate its standing. Nonetheless, this by no means implies a general amnesty to all members of the dictatorship. People who committed crimes against humanity and who don’t yield enough influence to menace the stability of the new democratic government must be brought to trial. Justice has to be done, even if incomplete or belated.

Weaken the Presidency

Having secured its administration, the opposition-turned-government has to engage in more substantial and permanent types of reform. That’s why, first of all, in a historically hyper-presidential country like Venezuela, the Executive Branch as a whole needs a good, old-fashioned power trim.

A constitutional reform that limits the powers of the presidency is a must: reduce the term from six to four years, ban indefinite reelection—or ideally, ban reelection altogether—, abolish the infamous special laws that enable the President to rule by decree, mandate ministerial appointees to be confirmed by the parliament, and expand the role of collegiate rule through the Council of Ministers.

This doesn’t mean that Venezuela should completely dismantle its presidential system and substitute it with a semi-presidential or parliamentary one. That would only translate into unnecessary political complexity and instability for a country that above all needs stable and clear-cut institutions. These reforms would only signify the taming of the Presidency, stopping it from being an overreaching and unrestrained power that relegates all other branches of state power to minions of its will, and making it what it is called to be: the head of a collegiate Executive where the figure of the President, by right of its popular mandate, acts as a primus inter pares and not a dominus.

Strengthen Parliament

The necessary complement of diminishing executive power is the increase of its parliamentary counterpart. Don’t misinterpret me, I’m not advocating for an all-powerful National Assembly and, as I said before, not even a parliamentary system of government. That would be equally dangerous, as it could give the dominant party in parliament excessive hegemony over country affairs; or if by contrast, legislative elections result in an extremely fragmented Congress, the process of passing and reforming bills would become hell on Earth, the legislative rebuilding of the Republic would stagnate and the general functioning of the state could be blocked. 

A vigorous, autonomous and non-reliant Congress that can act without being improperly hampered by the President and the Supreme Court is the cornerstone of the checks-and-balances system. Legislation that ensures the National Assembly’s budgetary autonomy—that is, its right to directly create and manage its own budget without the Executive Branch’s interference, is important to this end.

The restoration of a Senate as a second Chamber that directly represents the federal state’s interests would create a checks and balances system inside the Legislative Branch.

The restoration of a Senate as a second Chamber that directly represents the federal state’s interests, as opposed to the Chamber of Deputies that represents the citizens as individuals, giving each one of these Chambers a set of matters of their own and exclusive competence to legislate on, as well as the attribution to review, ratify or reject legislation previously passed by the other Chamber, would create a checks and balances system inside the Legislative Branch that would strengthen the Rule of Law and mitigate the risk of single-party dominance.

Equally meaningful and oftentimes forgotten is the need to expurgate all overreaching influence of the Supreme Court (especially its Constitutional Chamber) on the democratic processes that ought to be controlled by the National Assembly by constitutional mandate.

Empower lower-level courts

Venezuela’s current Constitution enables lower-level courts to control and review the constitutionality of acts issued by other authorities, making them void if it’s decided that they go against any constitutional clause. The problem lies in the fact that these decisions have to be in turn reviewed by the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Every single time. This doesn’t only burden the Big One with unnecessary workload but renders vain all the work done by the smaller courts and turns the Constitutional Chamber into a dangerous, all-powerful behemoth that, if controlled by the wrong people—as it is currently the case under chavismo—can simply nullify anything that’s not convenient to its political interests.

If judicial constitutionality review could be performed autonomously by these lower tribunals, it would decentralize the court system and empower judges to act without being pressured or coerced by the top dogs sitting in the Supreme Court, thus minimizing the risk of losing their jobs if they don’t comply with the almost always politicized influence yelled from up in the ladder.

Create transparency

Venezuela has one of the shadiest and most corrupt governments in the world. It’s nearly impossible for a citizen to know not only how the government spends its budget and what kind of public deals it makes, but also to know the internal functioning of government and even the complete content of many laws, bills, court decisions and executive acts. Obscurity and corruption have permeated into the private sector as well. 

The network of corruption is so deep-rooted in the whole state apparatus, individual public employees and private citizens that it will require much more than the enactment of strong public transparency laws.

The best way to put into practice these deep reforms is by getting rid of our current and very flawed Constitution

Transparency must be ensured by all means and this entails the building of a powerful system of auditing agencies, completely apolitical and independent from the government, provided with strict parameters for choosing their members. They must be granted far-reaching prevention, auditing and sanctioning powers to cleanse the rot.

How can Edmundo and company do all of these?

All in all, it is clear that nowadays the Venezuelan state is more a network of competing and semi-autonomous criminal factions that keep themselves loosely united by common economic interests around military power. So rebuilding it almost from scratch and upgrading it to levels of robustness, transparency and efficiency never seen before in our country is no easy feat, but one that should be undertaken swiftly and vigorously nonetheless.

The best way to put into practice these deep reforms is by getting rid of our current and very flawed Constitution, which, despite some virtues and being lauded as a modern and progressive norm, the truth is that it was created back in 1999 to serve Chávez’s interests and as such, it is essentially designed to facilitate authoritarianism and is plagued by many vices and ambiguities.

The endeavor of putting in place all these reforms by drafting a new Constitution would call for the election of yet another Constituent Assembly, but this wouldn’t be the best of ideas during the first stages of a transition government, or on its whole length for that matter, since it would only bring further instability and uncertainty to the already sensitive period that a transition would be, and garner distrust among the public, making them recall the traumatic events of the illegitimate so-called National Constituent Assembly of 2017-2020.

Even if a whole new Constitution is indeed needed, for the time being, the reforms I have just proposed should be enacted either by law or concrete constitutional amendments, but have to be enacted at all costs. The social, economic, cultural and political recovery of Venezuela will depend on the existence of a correctly functioning, democratic, and modern state apparatus.