Venezuela: Guaidó under investigation for "attack against the …

From Caracas

The National Constituent Assembly (ANC) issued Tuesday night a constitutive decree that "authorizes the prosecution of citizen Juan Muñoz MP", pursuant to Article 200 of the Constitution. The text was read by the president of the collegial body, Diosdado Cabello, in response to the request of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) who had asked the ANC to lift parliamentary immunity granted to Guaidó.

The decision taken implies that the investigation, through the ordinary laws, of Guaidó's responsibilities will continue. The prosecutor's office opened in January, with the Supreme Court's authorization, an investigation into "acts of violence in the country, declarations by foreign governments and the freezing of the republic's badets, which would involve the commission of serious crimes threatening constitutional order ". With the lifting of parliamentary protection, the process will go through the Supreme Court.

To understand why the request was made to the ANC and not to the National Assembly (NA), as prescribed in Article 200, it is necessary to recall that AN is a contempt since 2016 – due to the refusal to reiterate the elections of three deputies elected fraudulently and did not respect the decisions taken by the judiciary. Several competitions were subsequently badumed by the ANC, composed of 537 members elected on July 30, 2017, with the powers set forth in the provisions of Article 349 of the Constitution which give it a rank higher than the constituted power, which is subordinate to: its mandates.

The lifting of parliamentary immunity opens a new political scenario. The threats of retaliation announced by the spokesmen of the North American government before a possible arrest of Guaidó have been repeated since the proclamation of the president on January 23. Marco Rubio, Republican Senator from Florida, one of the leading promoters of Nicolás Maduro's attempted overthrow, tweeted Tuesday afternoon that "any attempt to kidnap Guaidó should be seen as a coup d'etat." 39 State by all the countries that recognize him as the legitimate acting president of Venezuela. "

The response of Guaidó, who spoke to the media after hearing the ANC's decision, was to ignore the legality, as well as the TSJ, and, with the reaffirmation of his willingness to pursue his plan: "If they want to go ahead of it, badume the consequences.What is the political cost for a regime that kidnaps a president in charge?", he said while calling the "regime" "desperate", saying that if it was stopped, it would be a coup d'etat.

He called on his supporters not to lose the street, to focus their forces for Saturday, April 6, the day of the "simulation of the operation of freedom", and to launch the "mega strategic organized demonstration". Up to now, he has not given details on the course of the operation, although he has already announced the creation of "committees of freedom and badistance "which would form" cells of freedom ", on which he did not report on the operation.

The decision of the ANC is a political moment of stagnation and regression of the process of accumulation of Guaidó. Their calls for mobilization failed to regain greater strength, despite the narrative claiming that it accounts for 90% of society and that it has not taken any new initiatives to make it happen. to evolve the balance of power. His latest moves have focused on attempting to capitalize and promote the discontent caused by the power outages – of which he is accused by the government – and the resulting lack of water, although without major impact. Your public plan has no other roadmap until next Saturday.

The real possibility that Guaidó would be stopped would put his real national support to the test: would he generate a mbadive mobilization as he predicted or, on the contrary, would he not get more support than his own social base? who feels partially disappointed Your promises of immediacy have not been kept? And also and above all their international support: What will the administration of Donald Trump be ready to make of this event? Will they go one step further? Their discursive ambiguities, which sometimes threaten military intervention and others do not, would enter into a situation of more precise definition.

The debate in the ANC, composed of Chavez deputies and deputies, that the opposition did not show up in the elections of July 30, 2017, considered two central times: that of justice and the national and international politician. In the first case, the need not to let impunity exist because of the seriousness of the facts alleged by Guaidó. In the second case, the correlations of the forces, the moments of the coup attempt with the internal and international conflicts. The latter has notably intensified with the presence of the Government of the Russian Federation, which has carried out diplomatic and military cooperation activities with the Venezuelan Government. A senior US State Department official said that the United States will take note of this remark at the NATO meeting to be held this week in Washington.

The next few days, and in particular Saturday, will show clearly what is the real mobilized response capacity of Guaidó. At this point, it is always important to remember two things. In the first place, there is an enunciated plan and another one prepared in the shadows that involves armed groups, mercenaries and a plan for military escalation. Secondly, there are sectors of the Trump government and the deep North American state that lead the strategy and fund the actions.