Julio Borges - President of the National Assembly of Venezuela HARDtalk

Welcome to HardTalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.

Every day Venezuela seems to get one step closer to economic

and political chaos.

Mass anti-government protests have swept the country

for the past month.

Close to 40 people have been killed in clashes

with President Maduro's Armed Forces.

The shops are short of food, hospitals low on medicine,

something it seems, has got to give.

My guest is Julio Borges, Speaker of the opposition-controlled

National Assembly, is the Chavista socialist revolution dying

on its feet?

Julio Borges is in Caracas, welcome to HardTalk.

Thank you, Stephen.

We have seen more than 40 days of mass protests on the streets

and we see the violent clashes between protesters and the armed

enforcers of President Maduro and we see the casualties,

many injured and around 40 people, many of them very young, killed.

How long can this go on?

Well, listen, it is not only 45 days, we have been fighting for 18

years and 45 days.

And we are fighting for democracy in Venezuela and that is the reason

people are on the streets.

They are making huge demonstrations, not only in Caracas,

but all over Venezuela.

Unfortunately, the answer from the government

has been repression.

Yesterday, two people were killed, very young, 16 years and 33 years.

Every day we have the same routine of repression and violence

and it is very important for you to know that we are fighting

in the streets, just for democracy, just for trying to get a Democratic

pass in order to get free elections in Venezuela.

Free elections that are not planned in our constitutions,

but Maduro denies the right to the people to vote in elections,

so we have only the streets as a space to fight for our rights

and democratic rights in Venezuela.

As a responsible political leader and you are the President

of the National Assembly, you're one of the leaders

of the Justice First party, do you not have a responsibility

at some point, when you look at the bloodshed and you point out,

many of the people who have lost their lives are students,

they are young people.

Do you not have a responsibility to say to the protesters,

in your own party and far beyond your own party,

enough is enough?

The bloodshed, the cost, it is too high?

Yes, but our responsibility is to bring peace, democracy

and freedom to Venezuela.

We are living in a Venezuela which is like a bad copy of Cuba.

There are no rights in Venezuela, there is no food, there is no

medicines, there is no opportunities.

Thousands and thousands of young people are leaving Venezuela

in order to look for a future in other countries.

So, it is not only a political conversation in Venezuela,

it is a vital, existential, based on values, confrontation

in Venezuela.

If you see the people who are demonstrating

in the streets, we see every kind of people,

young people, old people, politicians, social activists,

unemployed people.

So it's all Venezuelan people against Maduro.

It's not only a political confrontation.

Do you really think that these protests are going to get Maduro

out of power?

That is the call from the protesters, he has got to go,

they say, but there is absolutely no sign of him going anywhere.

Well, we are fighting for some values.

We have no time and no other way to fight for.

Freedom, justice, democracy - you have to remember,

Steve, that the only thing they have is ordering the coup d'etat

that Maduro gave to the Parliament.

They almost closed all the Parliament, and the Venezuelan

people went to the streets in order to defend democracy and to defend

separation of powers, and to defend their rights to vote

and to defend their rights to have a free economy.

So we have a very deep fight in Venezuela, and when you face

a government that has no intention to open for a democratic agenda,

so, for Venezuelan people, there is no other way,

than to fight in the streets.

And people are willing, and with emotion, to fight

for their countries.

But Venezuelans also have a sense of history,

and they know that in 2014, very soon after Maduro came

to power, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets

to try and get him out, claiming that that

election was illegitimate.

He faced down the protesters and he won that battle.

And then we can fast-forward to last year,

when you and many colleagues demanded a recall election.

And again, you believed that you could bring Maduro to his knees.

But he outlasted you again, and I would put it to you that there

is every sign this time around that Maduro is going to

outlast you yet again.

Yeah, but we are taking some good advantage.

The international community has a very clear and very needed view

about Maduro as a dictatorship.

Venezuelan people have a very strong position.

It's not a minority, but a huge majority, almost 80%,

85% of the people, who are completely

sure that Maduro will have to be out of power, because he did a coup

d'etat in Venezuela.

Julio Borges, you know that in democracies,

you do not run governments by opinion poll, you run them

by elections.

And let us not forget that Nicolas Maduro,

whether you like it or not, he has an elected mandate.

He won the presidential election after Hugo Chavez died

at the end of 2013.

He is due to be, according to his mandate, President

of Venezuela until the very end of 2018.

That is the mandate.

Yes - no, but listen.

You have to rule the country by one constitution,

and the constitution said that last year we had to have governors'

elections, and Maduro didn't want to make it.

We should have a recall referendum, and Maduro stopped it.

This year, we should have had the regional elections

and Maduro stopped them.

So, it cannot be one constitution for Maduro and one constitution

for the Venezuelan people.

That's it, the core of the problem.

Right now in Venezuela, we have no constitution

at all, and we only have the will of Maduro,

and he decides whether we have elections

or not in Venezuela.

This is not fair, it is not democracy, and we are fighting

precisely, Steve, for having a democratic path,

which is elections in Venezuela.

So we are fighting for trying to bring the constitution out

for our political life.

We are trying to fight within the constitution.

This is a huge difference.

We are calling for democracy, Maduro is calling for violence.

Well, Maduro says that you, in particular, and he identified

you as an individual, Julio Borges, he said that you are the coup

master, and what you really want is a coup.

And I have to say, looking at some of your comments

of late, one of your comments saying it is time for the men in green,

that is the armed forces, to, quote, break their silence.

Are you suggesting, implicitly, that you want to see the security

forces, in particular the army of Venezuela,

refuse to follow orders?

Well, we are calling to the army force in Venezuela

to precisely help Venezuelan people, not opposition,

to help Venezuelan people to have the rule

of constitution and democracy in Venezuela.

Let me tell you again...

Well, forgive me, but the armed forces are supposed to follow

the orders of the commander in chief,

the President of the country,

I do not see how it is being constitutional to imply that

you want to see all of the armed forces of Venezuela

mutiny, which appears to be what you are suggesting to happen.

No, because there is a huge difference, Steve,

between a chief commander which is acting as the head

of the Venezuelan government, with Maduro,

who is acting and delivering orders to the armed forces as the head

of a political party.

What we don't want is an Army force with political colours,

which is part or belongs to a political party.

That's the real problem.

We want independent institutional and democratic army force.

That's the core of the problem.

We are calling for an army force, not for opposition.

We are calling for an army force to respond

to democratic institutions in Venezuela, not political parties.

The one who has colour with political parties has been

Maduro.

All right.

A very simple question for you, yes or no.

Are you asking for the armed forces on the streets,

policing the demonstrations, and of course sometimes opening

fire, we have seen that,

are you asking those armed forces to refuse to follow orders?

Absolutely.

I think that to fight against human rights,

it has to be called, in order to operate in the consciousness

of each guardian that it's breaking the human rights

of the Venezuelans.

And there is no way that you, Steve,

can justify that an undemocratic government can make such

a demonstration of violence against the people, when people

are demonstrating in a very pacific way, just for asking

for elections in Venezuela.

There is no proportion of people, a people who is young people

demonstrating for a peaceful solution,

which is owed, and repression from the government,

against their human rights.

Even putting people under the jurisdiction of the military

which is against the constitution, is against human rights.

So we have to ask for consciousness, for fighting for our human rights

in Venezuela, and not for repression.

Well, the problem you have is that you have a track record

and of course Maduro and the people in the government constantly

refer to it.

You're known as someone who supported the attempted military

coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002, and we know from leaks in Wikipedia

that appeared in the years afterwards, that your party had very

close ties to the United States, and that there appeared to be

hundreds of thousands, if not millions of US dollars that

were funnelled into your party from NGOs that were funded

by the United States.

So there are many people in the regime who say that

you are nothing more than an agent of the United States,

the imperial power.

That's propaganda, and

this is very easy to demonstrate, Steve.

Let's go to an election and let the people decide if I am

an agent of the imperial power, or I represent some

leadership in Venezuela.

So it's very easy to demonstrate that you have to provide people

the opportunity through the vote to decide

which future they want in Venezuela, and I'm absolutely sure

that the political movement that we have created,

with so many young leaders in Venezuela, is right now

the choice, the future, to decide what Venezuela wants,

for a modern Venezuela.

So it's very easy.

Let the people vote and let the people decide

which future they want.

The person who is refusing that is Maduro.

On May the 5th, I believe, you had a meeting with

Vice President Mike Pence and I think you also met

with the national security adviser HR McMaster.

Did you ask them for American help, and specifically

did you ask them to go beyond targeted sanctions

on individuals and impose economic sanctions on Venezuela has a whole?

Not at all.

Impossible.

We are building, in North America, and mainly in Latin America,

a kind of group or team of countries which can help Venezuela

in this crisis.

We have talked with the President of Panama, we have talked

with the President of Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile,

Mexico and all of them are really worried about Venezuela

for one reason - Venezuela is not only

a local problem, right now, it is a regional problem

and we are asking for the help of the community, of

the Latin American community, in order to try and bring and build

a democratic agenda right here in Venezuela and the chief

aim of this agenda is letting people vote.

This is very clear, there is no other way of letting people vote

in order to build a solution.

The thing is, you have talked throughout this interview as though

the opposition is united, the trouble is that the opposition

is nowhere near united, there are 21 different opposition

parties, you have a history of being divided, you individually

have had fights with other opposition leaders, frankly,

often times, the Venezuelan opposition, has been fighting

amongst itself like rats in a sack.

So why would the outside world or indeed the Venezuelan people take

seriously this proposition that if you were to get an election

and a few in the short-term opposition alliance against Maduro

were to win, that you could actually govern coherently,

because you're so disunited?

Well, sorry, but that is not true, Steve.

I am the President of the Parliament and the President of the party

and I am the head of a Coalition, which has 14 political parties

within the Coalition.

What we have realised is unity, that is something we are very

proud of that.

There is no election in Venezuela in which we have presented two

candidates, only one candidate from the opposition,

versus one candidate from the government.

We have only our unique platform.

We have only one message in the campaigns, we have a system

of rule for election by referendum and the priority of candidates.

We have a strong position.

I understand that you only put up one candidate against Maduro

and you insisted you have one message which is that there must be

elections and Maduro must go, but that is not good enough.

You have been telling me that the Venezuelan people

are suffering, the shops are empty, the hospitals have no drugs,

the economic system is broken and yet when I look

at what you are putting forward, you're not telling the Venezuelan

people how you would solve the crisis they are living through.

You do not have a coherent platform and many of your parties have very

different visions of what you would do with the Chavista socialist

system.

Listen, Steve, the way we are living in Venezuela is a tragedy.

So, it is not that we are facing a bad government, a regular bad

government as you would have in any country.

We are living in a real tragedy, people are dying

because they are hungry, people are dying because they have

no medicines, people are in the streets eating

from the garbage and we are living in what is one of the most richest

countries in the world.

So, what we have in Venezuela is a pre-ideological problem.

We have to fight not for very fancy public policies,

we have to fight for a government who gives us democracy,

a government that has checks and balance, the rule of law,

and in all this, we are very united, not only as an opposition,

but as a people, as Venezuela.

There is no problem with that, because we are living

in such a tragedy.

But with the greatest of respect, I have just, as you know,

been in Venezuela and I have spoken to a lot of people in different

parts of the country, and in different economic

situations, from the rather posh suburb where you happen to live,

to some of the poorest slums where some of the most loyal

die-hard Chavistas lives.

The impression I get is that many people are very alienated

from Maduro, but there is still a hard core of support

for Chavismo, for the idea of a socialist revolution

and if you get rid of Maduro, it seems to me that there is a real

risk of civil strife, maybe full-scale civil

war in Venezuela.

Are you prepared to run that risk?

Well, I do not agree with that picture.

First of all, Steve, Chavista live in the modern reaches,

-- First of all, Steve, Chavista live in the mosdt riches,

urbanisation and other portions of the city.

I am not talking about the members of the government, I am talking

about ordinary people, some of whom do believe that

Hugo Chavez is the reason that they can afford some sort

of an accommodation, have a job, have a better economic existence

than they had when your class was in power in Venezuela

in the 1980s and early 1990s.

At that time, I was 20 years old.

Sorry.

But I can tell you something, these people, right now,

they know that Maduro has destroyed what they praised for Chavez.

Right now, the Chavista and Maduro bases are only 10% or 12%

of the population.

And we know that we can have a future in the government

and we can bring those people for a new Venezuela

and a very united Venezuela.

I do not see at all any problem or chance

of confrontation, because there is no symmetrical proportions,

because there is almost a very unanimous position against Maduro,

we are talking 90% of the population is against Maduro.

It is not half of the population, it's 90% of the population,

so I do not see any risk of having a democratic path and having a very

inclusive, you are right on that, a very inclusive speech and very

inclusive policies in order to bring together

a whole country.

Let me ask you a personal question, you have four young children,

you know what is happening in your country today,

I mean, one of the most high-profile opposition leaders,

Leopoldo Lopez, after the last round of mass

demonstrations, he was convicted of incitement, he has got 14 years

in a military prison.

You have been attacked with a metal pipe.

You have been beaten up.

In the last month, you have been tear-gassed, it's very

probable, given what Maduro has said about you personally in recent days,

you're going to end up in prison, too, perhaps in military prison,

for many years, are you ready for that?

Well, I am ready for fighting, I am ready for what we believe in

Venezuela.

We are ready for fighting for the values that make democracy

strong, splendid and great for Venezuela.

All of us take the risk - yesterday, two young people died,

and they were not ready for that - but we are being positive,

we believe that all Venezuelans know, all Venezuelans are very aware

that we are fighting for something that we have to do,

we need to do everything we can in order to create a country

for all of us.

We have to fight with that in mind.

One thing on which you and Maduro would agree, you have talked

about the need for inclusivity.

Maduro in recent days has said, we need to get a dialogue going,

he has the idea of a constituent assembly, to develop

a new constitutional framework for Venezuela and he wants

you and the opposition to join the dialogue.

Are you prepared to do that?

You have kept saying no in the recent past.

You know that this proposal of Maduro is a real fraud,

because it will not be a constitution, it will not be

elected by the people, it will be something

like the Congress of Mussolini, where the people were appointed

by sectors and not directly by the people, so it is a real

fraud, it is a copycat for Cuba.

OK, well, Julio Borges, we have to end there,

but thank you very much for joining me on HARDtalk.