MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela: Maduro regime will be a “facto government” since 2019

The term of office (2019-2025) will not be recognized by the opposition or the international community when it considers the elections of May 20 to be “fraudulent”

Academics of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) debated between December 20 and 26 on the constitutional end of Nicolás Maduro's office term between 2014-2019 and propose three clear lines against the question of the oath of office on the 10th of January. The new period (2019-2025) won't be recognized by the International Community.

The new term of office will not be recognized by the Venezuelan opposition and part of the international community when it considers the elections that took place in 2018 “fraudulent,” according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. This position echoed in several Latin American countries and the European Union (EU), where the European Parliament’s main parties demanded the suspension of the elections because “this process does not guarantee fair elections”, declared on May the high representative of the EU for Foreign Policy, Federica Mogherini.

For their part, professors of Constitutional Law of the UCV asked for pressure and monitoring of international treaties to the international community, street and organization to civil society and the National Assembly (AN), with opposition majority, to become the guide for the restoration of democracy, declaring Maduro's new mandate as a “facto government.”

Summoned by the certainty that from the academy can be guided to the rescue of what they have called “the national soul”, in an eight-page document -which does not mention the word “transition” once – specialists consider that the despotism represented by the constitutional break of January 10 points to the “dissolution of the Republic.”

The document mentions the negative effect on the country of phenomena such as migration, caused by the economic crisis that has forced the emigration of more than three million Venezuelans, according to the World Organization for Migration (IOM) and which are catastrophic on the rebuild of a Republic.

On January 10, 2019 expires the constitutional period 2013-2019 of President Maduro. The chair of Constitutional Law ignores the presidential elections of May 20 convened by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), an organ considered illegitimate by -among other deficiencies- not having been convened by a popular referendum.

In one of the points of the document, the AN is asked to be the vehicle to restore democratic institutions. This is how they propose: 1) Ratify the declaration of “facto government” of November 13, 2018. 2) Declare in emergency and in permanent session. 3) Establish a Consultative Council chaired by the next president of the AN, composed of the board of directors, committee chairs and citizens committed to restoring democracy.