A room at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. MIGUEL GUTIÉRREZ (EFE)
The elections to elect the rector and the rest of the academic authorities of the Central University of Venezuela, the oldest and most important in the country, were the first to be organized in the institution after 15 years of legal wrangling at the Supreme Court of the Chavista regime – were surprisingly middle today suspended in the vote, the call to which was answered massively after technical defects occurred which extremely delayed the optical reading of the election records and led to an excessive delay in the installation of the polling stations.
The measure was announced by the President of the Electoral Commission, Professor Carlos Martín, who said the elections have been postponed to June 9. At noon, the electoral commission had fallen into a trap with the seven presidential candidates and had pondered the costs of postponing the appointment. Martín announced the postponement shortly after offering a press conference justifying the delays and giving guarantees that the elections would not be suspended.
This consultation was agreed between university authorities and top government after a long legal vacuum had existed since 2008 and the Chavista legislation continued to impede its implementation. The chavismo eventually allowed the UCV to organize things itself and put on the table some conditions for talks, such as organizing a date when the entire population living at the university would come to vote, and not just the academic staff . Candidate Miguel Alfonzo, a doctor from Juntos por el Patrimonio, tops the list of the event’s most well-known Chavistas. The UCV will also extend vice rectors, secretaries, deans and vice deans, including school addresses. The negotiations for the government were conducted by the brothers Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez.
A group of angry students broke into the offices of the Faculty of Medicine of the Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, where the electoral commission worked, in the afternoon, demanding the resignation of the rector currently present in the room, Cecilia García Arocha, accused by her of fomenting the delay, and the members of the commission. After presenting unconvincing explanations, Martín and the rest of the commission handed in their resignations.
Since 2 p.m., students have been protesting the delay in setting up polling stations, shouting “We want to vote” in the long lines of stranded voters. Many of them showed up very early in the morning and withdrew after three or four hours wasted. By noon, impatience reigned in all faculties, filled with frustrated voters.
“Until the University Council provides answers on the reasons for the suspension of the consultation, we will not proceed here. You have to give us explanations for this suspension, we want to vote,” student leader Jesús Mendoza, president of the Federation of University Centers, shouted angrily in front of an excited crowd of students who applauded him.
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Enrique López Loyo, one of the candidates in the election campaign, denounced in the morning that election material had been deliberately destroyed in order to delay the process. Some suspected it was a covert sabotage to force the UCV to seek technical assistance from the pro-government National Electoral Council. “This delay is inexplicable after we had so much time to organize this process. These are all things that should have been taken care of in advance,” said Humberto Rojas, one of the candidates with the most options.
The day before the appointment, the electoral commission itself published a video on its Twitter account showing part of the ballot papers affected by a leak in a wall as a result of the rains that have fallen in the city in recent days. . The display of electoral material in this flooded room was evident. The tweet announced that the recordings had been “saved” amid drops. The humidity would have affected the operation of the optical readers that require the ballots.
The elections at the UCV, Venezuela’s main autonomous university, an important place in the country’s civil universe, had sparked real interest in Venezuelan society and in the entire academic community of this 302-year-old institution, estimated at around 250,000 people.
The Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas was visited very early on by professors, students, workers and administrative staff, encouraged by the winds of democracy that the appeal blew amid the harsh government siege of those years. In this struggle, the opposition tendencies in the consultations traditionally had a clear majority against Chavismo.
The UCV, a dying space in these years, afflicted by the diaspora of staff, precarious salaries and decline, eliminating for years an uninterrupted succession of tensions with the chavismo, presented these days a renewed look, certain festive auras, a Campaign, which occupied a significant portion of existing academic strength, several stimulating and respectful debates among candidates, and the promise of massive turnout.
Despite the general irritation, the university management is confident that the willingness to vote in the next consultation on June 9th will remain. Humberto Rojas, physicist; Víctor Rago, an anthropologist and linguist, and Amalio Belmonte, a sociologist, seem like the most likely candidates.
“I’m not responsible for what happened here,” said the outgoing rector, Cecilia García Arocha, after the students’ whistle. “I’m leaving on July 14, but because I want to go, not because they tell me I have to go. Insults are part of the job. I’m ashamed of what happened, but I’m not to blame.
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