Elections in Venezuela: under the gaze of the veed …

From Caracas.“Every democratic act is an act of peace,” he declared Indira Alfonso, the president of the National Electoral Council Last Thursday at the opening of the international control of these legislative elections of mid-term.

This is the first election in Venezuela since the PSUV has governed, where the system of International control offices. Until these elections, the delegations that arrived in Caracas did so as observers and international support.

The veedurías also coincide with a new management of the presidency of the CNE, which is one of the powers of the Venezuelan state, independent of the executive power.

Election experts, political leaders and leaders, intellectuals, journalists, trade unionists and social organizations make up the delegates from dozens of countries around the world. Representatives from Spain, United States, Iran, Mexico, Argentina and Ecuador; To name a few of the idiomatic and cultural crossovers that are happening these days in the hottest Eurobilding, where most of them stay.

The most important Latin American presence during the opening of the control offices was that of the former President of Ecuador Rafael Correa with whom the Argentine delegation shared a flight from Mexico to Caracas.

In Argentina, the presence of Daniel Catalano, Secretary General of Ate Capital, former legislator and member of the Progressive International, José Campagnoli, Carlos López, former secretary of the presidency during Kirchnerism and current president of the Latin American observatory of the Chamber of Deputies, the electoral expert Marina Urrizola, the teacher Bustos Ezequiel, by the Faculty of Journalism of the National University of La Plata, the journalist Néstor Pickaxe by the IP among others.

The international mission is to observe and verify whether the conditions for the legitimacy of these elections are in place.

To this end, the delegations made during these days various observations in Caracas and in the interior of the country on the electronic voting system, the security conditions and the transfer of machines and ballot boxes, voting centers, oversight presence in elections.

During these legislative elections, 277 unicameral seats will be renewed. About 90 political organizations participate and there are 14,000 registered candidates, since party and person voting coexists under Venezuelan electoral law.

The opposition

A fundamental question is to know if in Venezuela there is an opposition to the government of Nicolas Maduro who is participating in the elections.

Generally speaking, the Venezuelan opposition can be defined in two blocks: one made up of the dozens of parties and organizations participating in the elections. In this scenario and being legislative elections, no big names stand out but those who make up the party with Henry falcon and the followers of the evangelist leader Javier Bertucci, who in the 2018 presidential election, appeared outside the traditional parties, obtained a million votes.

This bloc configures the democratic opposition. Although divided and in fragmented positions, he participates in the elections and discusses the country’s conflict in Venezuela. This opposition participating in the elections is probably one that part of the world is unaware of, due to the phenomenal media blockade suffered by Venezuela.

The second bloc is made up of the opposition which refuses to participate in the elections because it does not recognize the Maduro government and is functional to the interfering interests of the United States. Currently directed by Juan Guaidó and integrated by Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo López, who, from Spain, where he is a fugitive, makes declarations of electoral fraud.

This second block of opposition that the world knows, following the incessant voices of a political and media right which is building a fictitious legitimacy and at the same time a deep stigmatization of Venezuela, also shows a rupture. A few days ago, Leopoldo López said in an interview from Spain that in a possible presidential election he would be ready to participate because Maduro would suffer “a 90-10 defeat”.

It is an important fact of the divisions of this anti-democratic bloc that a good part seems to want to break away from Guaidó due to the possible reconfiguration of the scene in relation to the United States before Donald Trump’s derrota, its main promoter.

Cuba of the 21st century

You can’t chronicle Venezuela without talking about oil and the blockade. The financial blockade that this country is undergoing revives the Cuban experience in multiple similarities with the difference and the complexity that Venezuela has one of the most important oil reserves on the planet. US sanctions probably do not fully explain the economic crisis that the country lives but is inescapable during its analysis.

Here, in addition to the depreciation of wages, between 2 and 10 dollars on average, and inflation without the possibility of measurement, the economic urgency is due to the lack of fuel.

In Venezuela, energy and fuel services are free. But, except in tourist centers, running water runs three times a week and there are days without electricity. To overcome the problem of the lack of physical bolivars, a dollarization of the informal economy has been generated and you can buy arepas, coffee, or go to the supermarket and pay in dollars by doing quite a negotiation with small bills and rounding up the prices.

There is no longer a shortage in gondolas, as was the case until a few years ago, and the government has begun a formal squeeze of private capital to form majority state-owned joint ventures.

The street, participation

In a meeting that the Argentine delegation had with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and to which this journalist is part as an observer, part of the meeting discussed expectations regarding the level of voter turnout on Sunday.

In the analysis, it was concluded that five factors had an impact on this calculation: the pandemic, the lack of transport since the blockade prevents abstention from fuel, the call not to vote by an opposition sector, a certain comfort from a Chavista sector which takes victory for granted and that in Venezuela voting is optional, not required.

An official present at the meeting said that 40 percent would be a very good level of participation. The figure is almost the historical average of voters in the United States and is the usual number for countries where voting is not compulsory.