As he had announced days before his imposition, on January 10 Maduro presented to the National Assembly (NA) a draft reform of the Constitution that, he said, should be studied and developed by the legislative body. Then, on January 15 he signed the decree creating a commission to reform the Constitution, with the purpose of “expanding democracy” and “the construction of a new State.” This new State will surely be configured in the logic of the communal state.
For now, the details of the reform are unknown. The commission in charge is chaired by the prosecutor Tarek Saab, who will be accompanied by Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, the vice president Delcy Rodríguez and the deputy Hermann Escarrá. The figure of the commission to reform the Fundamental Charter is not foreseen in the Constitution.
It is worth remembering that in 2017 Maduro had called for a national constituent assembly that, after two and a half years of sessions, did not reform the Constitution, so this new announcement to modify the constitution from a more closed – and surely more controlled – space could lead to changes that serve as a foundation for a totalitarian structure.
At the time of announcing the constitutional reform initiative, Maduro reported that the NA would set up a political dialogue table with the National Electoral Council (CNE) to agree on the electoral schedule for 2025, despite the fact that neither the NA nor Maduro have the authority to establish the schedule.
In effect, the NA created the Special Commission for the Review of Electoral Norms and Laws, which began to meet in January. Jorge Rodríguez, president of the NA, recalled that the only law that cannot be modified in the six months prior to an election is the Organic Law of Electoral Processes, but that the rest of the electoral legislation can be modified, which suggests that changes will occur in the regulatory framework related to the process of recognition of parties, nomination of candidates and the development of the elections. In this way, it would seek to give legal support to the long process through which the Supreme Court of Justice configured an opposition tailored to Chavismo, in order to determine who the candidates of the “opposition” are.
In addition, at the end of December the Organic Law of the Communes was published in the Official Gazette, an instrument that seeks to displace the mayors and governors as territorial and local management bodies, and that corresponds to the unconstitutional communal state. Everything indicates that the announced constitutional reform will seek to articulate the different figures of the communal state that have already been positioned, including the recent election of communal justices of the peace.
All these announcements and initiatives occurred in the context of the most severe wave of repression that led in the first days of January to an unprecedented number of arbitrary arrests followed by short-term disappearances, including the son-in-law of the president-elect Edmundo González, a former president of the business organization Fedecámaras, a presidential candidate and the human rights defender Carlos Correa, among others. The issue of disappearances led the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to make public a general allegation in which it identifies “a pattern of so-called ‘short-term’ forced disappearances that occurred in the context of the presidential elections in Venezuela, on July 28, 2024.”
At the same time, Maduro continues to bet on isolation, by taking unprecedented measures against Italy, France and the Netherlands, countries that were ordered to reduce their diplomatic representation in the country to three officials.
On the other hand, there are voices that do not help the cause of the recovery of democracy in Venezuela, as is the case of former president Álvaro Uribe, who suggested an international intervention in Venezuela to remove Maduro from power; The call was made nine days before the inauguration of Donald Trump, whose possible agenda regarding Venezuela is still unclear.
Extreme positions will only serve to allow Maduro to further raise the walls of his totalitarian project, pretending to make himself a victim. That is why the international community must keep human rights at the center of attention, without giving in to the blackmail of those who hold power in Venezuela or letting itself be won over by a warlike line.