Venezuela: Litmus Test for the Inter-American Democratic Charter

By: Beatrice E. Rangel - 31/07/2024

Next year the Inter-American Democratic Charter should turn 25 years old. Its survival will depend on how the OAS Permanent Council applies its precepts to the case of Venezuela. Because the situation in that country has become a kind of Gordian knot for the institutions in charge of defending the democratic order in the Americas.

Created on September 11, 2001, the Inter-American Democratic Charter is part of an institutional building conceived by the brilliant mind of George HW Bush with the idea of bringing prosperity and political stability to Latin America. It was about having a regional instrument to defend democracy from any threat. The threats, however, as they were conceived at that time emanated from the seizure of power by armed groups or military establishments resorting to violent means. In summary by the occurrence of a coup d'état. The creators of the Inter-American Democratic Charter were far from imagining that in the 21st century the threats to democracy do not originate in the Armed Forces or in armed groups but in the execution of strategies of internal weakening that have as protagonists political groups with vision totalitarian. In the thinking of these groups, it is about remaining in power beyond the popular mandate and for this it is necessary to create mechanisms to weaken the institutions and isolate the electoral result from the exercise of the right to self-determination. Thus, the groups identified in contemporary political science as belonging to 21st century socialism manage to be elected by the popular vote and from the moment their management begins, a strategy of weakening the judicial power and penetrating the electoral power is deployed. Democracy is thus emptied of content because the electoral power is dedicated to developing creative algorithms that are capable of granting victory only to the occupants of the executive power. The judiciary, meanwhile, is used as a weapon to bring down the opposition. This is how democratic institutions are phagocytized. An entity is born that has a democratic façade but is really a totalitarian power.

This has been the history of Venezuela for the last 26 years. A continuous weakening of the democratic institutional framework and a permanent destruction of the independent productive apparatus to create a nation of slaves to power.

And for this type of strategy to weaken democracy, the Inter-American Democratic Charter lacks specific weapons. So to enforce it in the case of Venezuela where a legitimate opposition has achieved the feat of winning an electoral process without being able to place advertisements about its theses and candidates; Without being able to travel on commercial airplanes and without having a minute of advertising in the media, the self-strike thesis will have to be applied. Because thanks to the opposition leadership, there was a turnout of 66% of the population and a massive vote for the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. The difference, as witnessed by the minutes posted on a website by the opposition, is 37 points ahead of Nicolas Maduro, the current president. Nicolas Maduro's refusal to accept the opposition victory therefore typifies the qualities of a self-coup.

The regime thus clings to the lie that Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia had obtained 44% of the votes while Nicolas Maduro had obtained 57% of the votes.

We are therefore in the presence of a self-coup by the government. The definition of self-coup according to international treaties is “an act of breaking the constitutional thread through illegitimate means carried out by a leader who has come to power through legitimate means to remain in power.

And this is precisely the situation that Venezuela is experiencing today. Hence, it is time to include the notion of self-coup as a category that justifies collective action in the region in defense of democracy. If this is not done, the OAS will have to place the Inter-American Democratic Charter in the object room without any practical application.

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