Chavismo threatens to blow up the opposition primaries. Cilia Flores, First Lady of Venezuela, said this Monday in a conversation on her husband Nicolás Maduro’s program, broadcast on state television, part of what will from now on be the ruling party’s argument regarding the organization of the appointment: that the results are “fraudulent”. “The opposition did not accept the support of the National Electoral Council (CNE) because it knew how many people it could mobilize,” he said, pointing out that the participation rates published by the electoral commission were inflated. Flores also suggested that “those responsible for the fraud in this primary should answer to the authorities for the crime they committed.”
Diosdado Cabello, first vice president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), made similar comments during his usual meeting with the ruling party’s media on Monday. Cabello reiterated that Machado had been disqualified and that her presidential candidacy was “not possible.” Some minority opposition parties that did not take part in the race also decided to disqualify it. María Corina Machado, of the Vente Venezuela party, received 92% of the total valid votes in the Venezuelan opposition primaries organized on October 22 with the aim of electing a unified leadership for the 2024 presidential elections.
The Electoral Commission reported that 66.8% of the protocols had been counted so far, which corresponds to a count of one million five hundred thousand votes. The political and organizational environment of the event is confident that the number of participation in the total recording will exceed the threshold of two million votes, which would exceed all expectations raised in the organization of this event, given the large number of threats and incidents.
With this figure, which most likely broke a record in the history of the country’s electoral consultations, analysts believe that the political leader is given a clear mandate to take charge and the likely recomposition of the leadership and the political universe. and citizens of the democratic opposition. After meeting with several of his rival candidates – Andrés Velásquez, Andrés Caleca, Tamara Adrián, César Pérez Vivas – all of whom have offered their support and acknowledged the clear victory – Machado has announced the formation of a grand national coalition for the return to democracy.
Coming in second behind Machado was Carlos Prosperi of Democratic Action with just 4% of the vote. The other standard bearers have so far not received more than 1% of the votes received. Primero Justicia’s Henrique Capriles, who was second in the polls with around 12%, withdrew his candidacy. Freddy Superlano of Voluntad Popular declined in favor of Machado. Un Nuevo Tiempo did not present a candidate. Such circumstances led to the astonishing asymmetry presented by the election results.
Prosperi had been developing a campaign for several days to sow doubt about the reliability of the election, making some somewhat suspicious calls to the event’s organizers and criticizing some logistical delays. Some observers feared that there could be calls to ignore the result and try to play into the hands of the ruling party, particularly because of the mutual antipathy between Machado and AD.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
The political and public success of the event caused Prosperi to withdraw. A day after the meeting, Henri Ramos Allup, general secretary of Democratic Action, said his party also recognized Machado’s “clear, powerful and overwhelming” victory, adding that “the right thing, the institutional thing, is to recognize the truthfulness of some . “absolutely transparent results.”
Meanwhile, on the Chavismo side, there were initial reactions to the elections from the Venezuelan opposition, which in the end, following the Barbados agreements, was not ignored by the Supreme Court or the National Electoral Council or harassed by the official groups, as its organizers so feared. It remains to be seen what direction Cilia Flores’ statements will take and whether this will be the argument that Chavismo will use from now on to discredit the opposition. Flores claims that opponents did not trust the CNE to organize them, but the reality is that the electoral body’s offer came late.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.