“No one is going to take this great opportunity away from us.” This has been the reaction of the Venezuelan conservative candidate, María Corina Machado, after the incessant dialectical ‘bombardment’ of the last few hours against the opposition primaries, called for tomorrow Sunday inside and outside Venezuela. This candidate is her great favorite, since all the polls give her a majority of up to 60% ahead of her competitors, among whom the person who followed her in popular support, former governor Henrique Capriles, has already dropped out. .
The political ‘torpedoes’ against the process that seeks to elect a unitary candidate to fight in next year’s presidential elections against Nicolas Maduro came not only from the Bolivarian power; There was also ‘friendly fire’. On this occasion, coming from Acción Democrástica (AD), whose standard-bearer, Carlos Prosperi, appears as the second option with the most support thanks to the party apparatus of the social democrats. AD demanded that the primaries be postponed due to “the serious irregularities that we have pointed out in recent weeks and that make it impossible to carry out this process normally.”
Prosperi has also vented his anger with statements that would have been signed from the Miraflores Palace itself, inviting the “disqualified candidate” to postpone her interests in favor of Venezuelan democracy. In June, Nicolás Maduro ordered the disqualification of Machado for 15 years, which prevents him from participating in elections. The president has reasons to do so, despite its unconstitutionality: different polls confirm that the leader of Vente Venezuela, which has the support of Voluntad Popular and the former political prisoner Leopoldo López, leads him by more than 40 points.
And this point is precisely the main difficulty of the Barbados agreements signed this week between the government and the opposition on the Caribbean island, but which has Washington as the main instigator. The US has given an ultimatum to Maduro to rehabilitate Machado before the end of November and to release political prisoners, starting with the Americans.
The response from the National Primary Commission (CNdP) was immediate: the process continues, although they have been invited to debate their complaints this Saturday with AD representatives. Several candidates, such as Delsa Solórzano, Andrés Velásquez, Andrés Caleca and César Pérez Vivas announced their support for the CNdP and its continuity.
Opposition sources have confirmed to EL MUNDO that within AD and its candidate’s entourage the possibility of her abruptly abandoning the process this Saturday is being discussed. AD is the only party of the powerful G-3, traditional majority parties today within the Unitary Platform, that presents a candidate, at least yet. Primero Justicia (PJ) lost Capriles and Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) did not present a candidate. Its leader, Governor Manuel Rosales, maintains good relations with the central power of the revolution.
In parallel, Chavismo tightened the siege imposed for months against the internal elections of the Democrats. The National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) confirmed that the state communications entity has imposed censorship on radio and television channels, preventing them from talking about the primaries. “The exhortation is unconstitutional and violates the right to freedom of expression and information,” denounced Marco Ruiz, general secretary of the SNTP.
Different experts have also verified the difficulty in accessing the website where Venezuelans are informed of where to go to vote this Sunday.
All this despite the fact that the Barbados agreement, celebrated as a heroic feat by the revolution, guarantees free and proportional access to public and private media for all candidates.
“We warn about an escalation of attacks against the primaries. Censorship, persecution, harassment, struggles and pressure towards its leadership. We condemn the attacks and call for total respect for the conduct of the process. Venezuelans have the right to participate and elect their leaders” , stressed the human rights organization Provea, one of the most prestigious in the country.