What is Plan País, proposed by Juan Guaidó?

Listen this article

On April 23, Venezuela presented the so-called Country Plan to the session of the Organization of American States. What is this plan about?

The representative of the interim president of the OAS, Gustavo Tarre Briceño, presented the so-called Plan País to save Venezuela from the economic crisis. According to the Argentine newspaper Infobae, the proposal is planned to operate on three axes: social policies, economic policies and access to public services; with an additional point focused on reactivating the oil industry in Venezuela.

Leer en español: ¿Qué es el Plan País propuesto por Juan Guaidó?

On the other hand, Briceño explained to his colleagues that this plan is necessary to activate the economic life of every Venezuelan citizen, to offer quality jobs and, above all, to restore their political and social rights.

According to Bolívar Cúcuta, Briceño's exact words were: "to put an end to the exchange crisis, to reactivate production, generate employment and grow economically, Venezuela needs fresh money. The Country Plan states: 'In fiscal matters, the humanitarian emergency and the collapse of public services demand a significant fiscal expansion financed with external resources'".

At the end of his presentation, Briceño emphasized in the reactivation of the Venezuelan oil industry, since PDVSA currently does not have enough money to carry out the renovation program, nor does it have the infrastructure to meet the demand for crude oil.

However, beyond this noble plan, is this proposal really applicable?

The "interim" representative before the OAS

The session in Washington DC did not begin at all harmonious since some countries did not agree with the presence of Briceño before the plenary. As reported by La Nación, the representatives of San Vicente and the Grenadines, Bolivia, Barbados, and Guyana raised their voices of protest by considering the presence of two representatives of Venezuela before the OAS as illegitimate, alleging that the only one with plenipotentiary powers was the representative of the ruling party in Venezuela and not Briceño.

In the same way, there were some voices in favor of Briceño, such as Canada, Brazil, Colombia, and the United States; But, beyond the disagreements between the voices against and in favor, what does all this mean?

Beyond good intentions…

Actually, the country plan is more a letter of introduction from Guaidó to the OAS than really anything else. This, since the representation in the OAS, emanates from the decision of the elected official governors with voting throughout the Americas, and not by intentions and wishes of third States.

In addition, as El Espectador explained, in early 2017, President Nicolas Maduro decided to withdraw Venezuela from the Pact of Bogotá (OAS), a decision that would take effect between April and May 2019, for which Venezuela would be left without representation.

Coupled with the above, in a hypothetical case, it is practically impossible that the country plan was implemented by the Venezuelan government, given that said program depends on 90% of the power that emanates from Caracas and without its approval the radius of action would be very limited.

Read also: What Operación Libertad leaves so far

Is Plan País something new?

The answer is no. As the BBC explained, the country plan was presented by Juan Guaidó in January of this year in Venezuela, through the General Assembly. However, his ideas had a little echo in the government.

Probably, what you can achieve with this program is to raise foreign funds to alleviate, a little, the economic situation.

LatinAmerican Post | Miguel Diaz

Translated from "¿Qué es el Plan País propuesto por Juan Guaidó?"