CARACAS/SPECIAL. – The date and conditions of the presidential election in Venezuela remain a mystery, a constant that has been repeated since the opposition overwhelmingly won the 2015 parliamentary election by obtaining 112 of 165 seats.
According to the analysis of the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory (OEV) based on the parliamentary elections, “the electoral authority chooses the most convenient moment to set the date of the elections and manages the electoral times with great discretion for the benefit of the ruling party, complicating the preparation of the different political actors”
In this way, the election schedule “is not published sufficiently in advance and the dates of the activities are modified without notification, they are announced in dribs and drabs or once their deadlines have expired, they are published in silence and suffer drastic cuts. “This action damages and conditions the organization of the elections, becoming one of the main problems against the integrity of the elections.”
The signing in the National Assembly – on February 28 – of the electoral calendar proposal agreed upon by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela with parties and presidential candidates that are not part of the Unitary Platform demonstrates the discretion of this process. In the discussions that took place in the National Assembly, the execution of sensitive activities such as the reasonable time for updating the Electoral Registry or the presence of international observation missions from the moment the elections were called were not taken into consideration.
The date
It will now be up to the National Electoral Council (CNE), dominated by factors related to Nicolás Maduro, to define the date of the election and the technical periods to organize it. Venezuelan laws grant absolute discretion to the electoral body to define these issues, so a schedule could be drawn up that sets the presidential election within several months, or an express call could be made as happened in 2018.
However, the agreement signed between representatives of Maduro and the Unitary Platform in Barbados – with the mediation of the Norwegian government – establishes that the date of the presidential election must be agreed between the signatory parties of the agreement. The Unitary Platform did not attend the meetings in Parliament, arguing that it was not the planned space to discuss the development of what was agreed in October 2023.
The former member of the National Electoral Council (2006-2013) Vicente Díaz maintains that the schedule approved by the electoral authority must include an “adequate period of nominations, an adequate period of challenges, of observations and challenges to the electoral registry, of the electoral campaign, of Sufficient audit of the voting system and technical review. Call to the international and national community that can serve as electoral observers”
Diaz warns: “The CNE can carry out the elections very quickly. Not in 30 days, because there are some legal periods that are the only ones established in the law, which require a little more time. But they can do it very quickly. Now, that does not mean that by doing it this way the political rights of all Venezuelans are being respected. “A reasonable period of time to do that effectively is around six months so that things can be done as they have to be done.”
The disqualifications
Although the president of the National Assembly and head of the negotiating group Jorge Rodríguez maintains that the agreement signed in Parliament replaces the Barbados agreement, through a statement the member parties of the Democratic Unitary Platform ratified that they remain “willing to comply responsibly.” with the commitments we acquired in the Barbados Agreement to promote respect for the political and electoral guarantees provided for in the national Constitution and in the laws; Therefore, we are willing to work with the counterparty on a proposed schedule and date for the 2024 presidential election, as well as to review any proposal or document related to electoral matters, as long as it is within the framework of the Barbados Agreement.”
However, the Unitary Platform demanded: “Release the unconstitutional and arbitrary disqualifications that the regime manufactures at its convenience. Activate mega days of registration and updating of the Electoral Registry, inside and outside our territory, that allow us to serve the almost ten million Venezuelans who have the right to register or update their data. Immediately begin the pertinent procedures so that the presidential election has qualified and comprehensive international electoral observation. Agree on a robust audit protocol for the entire electoral process that provides guarantees to all participants in the upcoming process; and the immediate return of the cards of political organizations to their legitimate authorities*
For political consultant Carmen Beatriz Fernández “when the government signed the Barbados agreements, it believed that the primaries would be a resounding, logistical failure, that they would leave the opposition in a bad position and that is why Barbados advances; But when they saw that the primaries were a success, it was too late to back out. At this moment, what they are looking for is to skirt the agreement without jumping the red lines; That is, they look for ways to cheat the spirit of Barbados without contravening it (…) Another way to circumvent the agreement on political and electoral rights will be the date of the presidential elections. That is, call for a consultation to show control with twists and turns but in the end the elections will be held in the second semester as agreed in Barbados. They are not going to violate Barbados but rather its spirit which is something else and they are looking for a way to turn it around permanently. The same with the invitations to international observers, to the European Union. I’m sure they will invite them, now they will do it on the edge of the time limit so that it will be impossible for them to make an observation.
Persecuted candidate
For her part, the presidential candidate of the Unitary Platform María Corina Machado maintains that it is necessary for the regime to understand that it has to comply with the Barbados agreement and run with me in a free and open election (…) I am not a legally disqualified candidate, I am a persecuted candidate. I cannot leave my country, I cannot take an internal flight, I cannot rent a hotel, I cannot rent sound equipment, nor buses to transport my team, they blocked me three times in the state of Monagas. “Four of my team members in the states are detained and three of them disappeared for 27 days.”
The delay in defining the date of the presidential election can be explained by the results of the polls. The president of the consultancy Power and Strategy, Ricardo Ríos, maintains that currently the population that defines itself as opposition almost triples the sum of the two currents of the ruling party (Chavismo and Madurismo).
Ríos explains that for the month of January 2024, 8% of those consulted define themselves as “Chavista with Maduro” and 6% as “Chavista who does not support Maduro” (in March 2023 this figure was 11% for each category ), while 32% define themselves as “opposition” (in March 2023 this number barely reached 17%).
According to Ríos, the change in the results of political self-definition is explained by two specific events: The government failed to meet expectations for salary increases in 2023 and the opposition managed to articulate and mobilize around the primary.
@Puzkas
