María Corina Machado, chair of the polls for the primary elections, at a campaign event.LEONARDO FERNANDEZ VILORIA (Portal)
Chavismo has played a new card to complicate the opposition. After excluding technical support from the National Electoral Council (CNE) in the pre-election process, the company’s new board launched a decoy a month before the consultation to offer comprehensive technical services to the Unity Platform – the opposition alliance – and to the organizing committee. Last June, the opposition decided to move forward with the process in a self-directed manner after the CNE rectors resigned early in a Chavismo maneuver. Although they had negotiated some form of support, those options remained in limbo with the change of command. The new board, elected a few weeks ago and chaired by Elvis Amoroso, who supported the disqualification of several opposition candidates, released a statement on Friday expressing support for the process.
The CNE’s participation in the primaries was a nuisance for the opposition. The candidate María Corina Machado, who is by far the leader in voting intention in the race to elect Nicolás Maduro’s opponent, had expressed her rejection of the agency’s intervention, based on the distrust of its transparency and impartiality aroused in recent years. Other sectors, such as that represented by Henrique Capriles Radonsky, were in favor of relying on the official electoral infrastructure to ensure greater participation and have more resources in a process that would be difficult for the opposition to finance.
The change of rector, unexpectedly announced by the government, triggered the consensus of all actors who moved on the same side: primaries with manual voting, organized by civil society. On June 5, the Organizing Commission had requested a meeting with the CNE to ratify the technical information on the voter identity protection guarantees and, once confirmed, to submit a formal request for technical assistance. However, since there was no response, the request was not made. That’s why it’s strange that the CNE now claims to be answering this. Capriles then said given the changes, self-administration of the primaries was the right decision. “There was no other alternative, the process could not be delayed any further,” he wrote on his social networks. And Machado, who had called for manual voting from the start, celebrated the decision. “It is an achievement of the people.”
Now the opposition is faced with the dilemma again. The National Primary Commission has announced that it will consult the 13 candidates who have registered to find a common position on the measure announced by the CNE. In his statement, the Venezuelan electoral judge recalls that the law gives him the authority to organize the elections of unions and civil society organizations “at their request or at the order of the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court”, which opens the door to It is at the discretion of the Justice (in the hands of Chavismo) to decide on the appeal process.
The Unity Platform has allowed the participation of candidates excluded by the government and registered nearly 400,000 Venezuelans abroad so they can vote where they live. It is not clear whether the CNE, if it comes into play, will allow the participation of these politicians, including Machado, Capriles and Freddy Superlano, and whether the vote abroad will count for the result. So far, none of the candidates expected to lead the unity candidacy against Maduro have taken a position on this new movement, but the Venezuelan opposition is once again in crucial hours.
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