Without being exempt from controversy, the act of nomination, election and acclamation of the new directive of the National Assembly for this year, passed with total normality, although letting glimpse the fissures in the unity of the opposition. Henry Ramos Allup came out to defend the management carried out in 2017 and the dialogue that is maintained with the Government.
With 102 votes in favor and five against the deputy Omar Barboza was elected as the new president of the National Assembly (AN) for the period 2018-2019. The same result occurred in the cases of the elections of the two vice presidents of that institution, Julio César Reyes in the first and Alfonso Marquina in the second.
In this way, the internal pact assumed by the political opposition two years ago was fulfilled, with the Un Nuevo Tiempo party taking over the leadership of this third legislative period.
The bench of the ruling party was the great absentee on this occasion.
At the beginning of the protocolary act, complying with what is indicated in the Internal Rules of Debates, who was the president of the Legislative last year, Julio Borges (Primero Justicia), acted as chief of debate and the deputy Stalin González (Primero Justicia), previous head of the opposition parliamentary bloc, as an accidental secretary.
"I hope the energy they put here will also be used to fight the National Government," Borges observed the representatives of ProCiudadanos and "16 de Julio", groups that expressed their refusal of this decision.
The proposed directive 2018
The first to take the floor was the deputy Juan Guaidó (Voluntad Popular) who pointed out that the opposition's struggle against the National Government - which he called "dictatorship" - has become "a life and death struggle", given the worsening of the crisis that the country is registering. However, he admitted that they owe "the pledged word" to concretize the "political change in Venezuela."
He recalled the union that in 2015 made the candidates of the Democratic Unity Table (MUD) majority win the legislative elections of December 6, "unity" that stood out must be rescued.
"Not only will the word be pledged but the actions that speak of the National Assembly," he said this year.
Finally, Guaidó was the one who proposed, on behalf of the opposition's bench to Barboza, Reyes and Marquina in the board of the AN for the next 12 months.
Negal Morales was secretary general and José Luis Cartaya undersecretary.
They abstained and are against
Who saved his vote was the deputy José Aparicio of Pro Ciudadanos, noting that "was not consulted by the fractions that make up the National Assembly." He added that with respect to the dialogue "nothing will happen there," for which it was an "incongruence" what was going to be done there.
Later, on behalf of the "July 16" caucus, the deputy Omar González also saved the vote, reading the arguments by which they made that decision.
He assured that in the board of directors there were deputies that endorsed the "cohabitation" with the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), besides that they think that with it there will be no progress "in what the people want to get out of the regime", nor will it be achieved the humanitarian aid that the country urgently needs, "nor with the mandate of 7.6 million Venezuelans, which is the plebiscite held on July 16." They also branded the dialogue that takes place in the Dominican Republic as a "parody" that will lead nowhere.
"We do not feel represented by those who recognize that ANC," he specified.
It was Gonzalez who proposed that a roll call be made.
The response of Ramos Allup
These positions were answered by the deputy Henry Ramos Allup (Acción Democrática) noting first that "you can not save the vote before you voted," and that it was improper to have read a document without having asked the board for permission, when I was in a stage of orality.
He then pointed out the democratic character of that parliamentary chamber, allowing for dissent, in addition to the respect that has been given to the strict compliance with the agreements that all parties signed in 2015 since the current Venezuelan parliament was elected.
He stressed that he would not "play the game to the Government" by "implosing this AN".
He clarified that they are not going to "call any world war, or civil war," or call a confrontation with bloodshed in the street, of which the victims are always the "sons of the people" and not those of the people who make up the Government or Parliament. He admitted that they already count "a too high number" of deaths due to the repression of citizen protests.
He asked the camera to give standing applause to the previous board, which had to face all the "attacks of the Government". "Thank you very much Julio for having put the meat in the scorching", he told Borges having taken the step to attend the dialogue table to try to find solutions to the problem that Venezuela is registering. "We publicly recognize you for having endured the criticism to which you have been subjected with stoicism," he added.
"Count on our support," he told the new board of directors to whom he recognized the major challenge presented to him this year. "They have to be very political and interlocutors before this Government, which is there committing crimes," he said.
Borges thanked and "gave the witness"
In his words of farewell to the board of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, thanked the work done by the deputies last year and said, calling for hope, that "the Venezuelan people are stronger than the dictatorship and will defeat it with freedom, justice and future for all. "
He also reminded the deputies that they were not present at today's session because they are either arbitrarily deprived of liberty as in the case of Gilber Caro (Popular Will), or are persecuted by the National Government, in the case of the first Vice President of the AN in 2017, Freddy Guevara.
That is why he defended that in his administration they fought hard, demonstrating that the AN "has managed to be a space of democratic resistance (...) and continues and will continue to fight for a democratic constitutional and electoral solution for Venezuela."