In Venezuela, Chavist MPs are the first to get vaccinated and celebrate it on social networks

With little to no blushing faces, Venezuela’s Chavista MPs were the first to get vaccinated with Russian doses Sputnik V, unlike international recommendations that others should be first. Happy, lawmakers celebrated the vaccination on social media, sparking outrage among Venezuelans.

The first 100,000-dose batch of the Russian drug, which is only enough to immunize 50,000 people with its two applications, arrived last week and began distribution three days ago. This quantity does not cover not even 10% of the health workforce and represents only 0.5% of the total population, according to the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

In the distribution of few vaccines available, the privilege of belonging to the Chavist nomenclature has prevailed over the standards of international health organizations, which give priority to the elderly, health workers and high-risk patients.

MP Alfonso Campos Jessurun had no qualms about posting his credentials on social media certifying that he had received the first dose of the Russian vaccine, but later deleted the message.

“Today I received my first dose of Gam-Covid-Vac or Sputnik V vaccine, thinking it will reach the last Venezuelan. We continue to move forward in the fight to get #ElCambio for our country, ”said the Venezuelan MP.

Campos is a member of the El Cambio party and is part of the 24 “opposition” deputies who participated in the legislative elections of December 6, called by Maduro.

These elections were rejected for having been deemed fraudulent by the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, and by much of the international community.

Other deputies like Anyelith Tamayo and Rubén Limas They also acknowledged through social media that they had been vaccinated.

In the list of 277 deputies, it is not excluded that Diosdado Cabello, vice-president of the ruling Psuv party, and the board of directors made up of Jorge Rodríguez, Iris Varela, Didalco Bolívar and Cilia Flores, wife of Maduro, have been vaccinated. .

Maduro himself had announced it last week: “In the vaccination plan authorities are included that, by their work, they justify their street activity, their special protection so that the State continues its march. Likewise, the deputies will be vaccinated in this first stage ”.

The remaining 99.5% of the Venezuelan population have not been protected against the coronavirus without knowing when they will receive the vaccine. Only a 0.5% minority of Chavistas have had the privilege of being vaccinated, so the overwhelming majority have expressed outrage on social media.

Vaccine by votes

This is not the first time that the vaccine has entered the corridors of the small transparent Chavist administration. Faced with the mid-year elections of governors and mayors, the electoral slogan of the ruling party appears to be “vaccines for votes”, the president himself announcing on the radio in early February that the first 100,000 doses would go in part. to activists. of the We Are Venezuela movement.

The Movement We Are Venezuela (MVS) party, with a socialist and anti-imperialist tendency, Maduro created it in June 2017 and legalized it before the National Electoral Council (CNE) in January 2018.

The political discrimination of the vaccination, announced by Maduro, foresees that they will use it to obtain “votes for the vaccine”, ahead of the regional elections of governors and mayors slated for the middle of the year for perhaps favor his son Nicolasito, who is running for governor of Vargas (the coast of Caracas).

The strategy is not new. This same coercive mechanism of “he who does not vote does not eat” was applied by Chavism during the legislative elections of December 6.

Caracas, special

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