A couple of years ago, I told you the story of the controversial series of events leading to a very particular election: a "referendum revocatorio" on which voters were asked to decide if they wanted Mr. Chavez to stay in power or not.I clearly remember that day. It was the first time I was able to vote in my life. Before voting, I had to wait eleven hours in line (yes, 11!) which allowed me to read more than half of the 5th book of Harry Potter. By the beggining of this book, Harry Potter is the only one who has seen the dangeours, killer magician Voldermort alive. But the Mister of Magic, fearing a political convulsion as a result of this frightening and very serious information, refuses to believe Harry and starts a campaign to descredit him instead. Dumbledore, principal of Howarts (Harry's school) stands at the other side of this political battle, by believing Harry and supporting his statement. The minister sends one of its employees: Dolores Umbridge, to Howarts to work as a proffesor of "Defense against Dark Arts"; forcing Dumbledore to accept it. Dolores' classes are everything but "Defense against dark arts", a master pretending that no danger really exists, and therefore, no practical defense against dark arts should be taught; instead his classes are filled with pink color as her office and beautiful readings. The metaphor can be fully applied to this government, which has always used propaganda as part government' policy, in an attempt to hide the real, dangerous and compromising events.
But the paralelism goes further: Dolores Umbridge, under commands of the minister of Magic and without respecting Dumbledore's authority, quickly becomes "Howarts General Inquisitor". As Inquisitor, Dolores creates all sort of rules and specially prohibitions, detains and tortures students who believe in Harry and Dumbledore and on top of that, removes Dumbledore of his charge.Harry, united with a group of friends, create a resistance movement called "Dumbledore's Army". The students involved sign proudly a document which acredites as members of such group. Dolores discovers this list and prosecutes the signers. Pretty much like our government did, with the signatures of the opposition members that made this 2004' referendum possible, prosecuting all them as they were criminals just for signing a petition. Then, somehow (in a way that is too long to explain); the truth is finally found out by all the Magicians, in a way – way too obvious to be ignored, the minister aknowledge Harry's version to be true; and both Harry and Dumbledore see their prestiges back. During a boring Dolores Umbridge' examination, a couple of trouble-makers twins decided to sabotage the exam, using magic fireworks; the sign with all Dolores' rules crashes and all students find themselves free and happy again.
Back to our business, on August, 2004, I waited 11 hours in the line as I coincidentially read this story. I distracted myself finding paralelisms and let the general mode of the line, mostly composed by oposition minded people contagied me. I could already see the fireworks and the joy, once the elections gave us our favorable result. From there, it would be true that Voldermort – all our troubles – do exist and we should work against them efectively, not with plain political propaganda trying to hide our diseases.
After voting, I waited outside my voting centre to witness the voting scrutiny. In my center, oposition obviously won and the results were cheered by all of us present. But when I came back home, my sister was in tears. The TV already had announced a result which proved my voting center was not representative of my country at all: Chavez won. This desperate attempt of the opposition to overtrow Chavez' regime, actually made it stronger, confirming him as the ultimate and most popular reader of the country. Just in case we need another reminder of this heartbreaking truth.
Then, inmediately after the CNE launched the official results and my sister was draining herself into tears; Enrique Mendoza appeared on TV. He claimed those official results were not true: "We won – He said. "Now, what we should do?" - My sister asked me while the electoral fraud was being declared. To this day, I don't know if those elections were manipulated or not, all I know if that I never trusted an election since then. This fraud claim broke my trusting system, and the trusting system of many others.
Some protest followed, but this fraud was never proved. As a protest to the CNE (Our electoral Institution) refusal to recognize what the opposition claimed to be "the official results"; the majority of the opposition decided to suspend their participation off the political life; in particular, the legislative elections that were celebrated a few months later. A big part of the opposition also refused to be part of the regional elections celebrated about a year after that. As a result, all the political institution created to balance president' weight, were taken entirety by government parties. The assembly, in particular, was officially declared as a "red one"
Since then, everything has been eassier for the government and harder for the opposition. Many laws have been aproved without consulting to anyone who differs from the government. Since then Chavez has earned "special" powers to legislate by decree twice, has disrespect electoral results, the number of political prisioners has increased same as many prohibitions. Our Dolores Umbridge has instaled an exchange system control, has closed loads of radio stations and one major TV Channel, has threatened the church and the universities, has granted special rights and priviledges to those goverment' supporters, has covered many corruption scandals and has forbid any opposition demonstration to come near any government' institution.
And all this is due, of course, to the non democratic nature of Chavez and his comrades. But it is also due to us. To all of us who, unable to move forward after the confusing events of August, 2002; commited a political suicide by refusing ourselves to take part of the few spaces that still were left for us. I did it. We did it. I can't blame my parents or my grandparents or the politicians for that. I could had left the bed and go to vote that date but I did not. Every citizen' is responsible for its own vote, you can't pose a lack of will or "being convinced by the party" as valid argument to expell us of all responsabilities. It is not a valid argument.
Six years later, new legislative elections have been called to renew this nefastous and shamefull red assembly. The opposition is now determined to be part of it, but has encounter more restrictions than the ones it had in 2004. For example, if the opposition gets the majority of votes, we won't have the majority of seats at Parliament. Crazy, but true. This red assembly that has caused so much harm, was made by you and me. By us. We let it happen, by believing abstinence was a valid form of protest inside a non democratic regime, one where you must always fight with every resourse they give you, one where you must take every single opportunity available.
So I'm going to vote this weekend. I will never stop voting again. Inside or outside democratic regimes, voting is sometimes the only tool we have left, the only resource to change our realities, even if its just a little bit. Given today's restrictions, I'm not expecting favorable results. But I just know the assembly will not be completely red and that, in these circumstances, is an incredible progress. It's a seed, an oportunity to start ammending our mistakes and facing our responsabilities. Little by little, day by day, without turning back. Someday everyone here will see Voldermort, including the Revolution itself. It will became too obvious that this Revolutionary model does not work and that we need a different Venezuela. But we need to become different Venezuelans first. And we start doing so by voting, showing some democratic behavior, even tho we don't have the luxury of being in a democracy.
WARNING - this post was published inmediately after it was written, it has not been re- read nor edited. It probably has more mistakes than usual so my apologies, I hope I can fix it as soon as possible-