This Sunday, in Barinas the discontent against Chavismo is measured again. The regional elections will be repeated in the plains state of southern Venezuela, after the candidate of the opposition Democratic Unity Table defeated Argenis Chávez, brother of the late President Hugo Chávez and part of the dynasty that has ruled that territory for more 20 years old as a fiefdom, as the cradle of the leader of the Bolivarian revolution. A victory that has ruined Chavismo and that the Supreme Court, an ally of Nicolás Maduro, blocked with a ruling that ordered new elections to be held on January 9, on the grounds that the winner, opponent Freddy Superlano, had an alleged disqualification.
Although the ruling party won most of the mayoralties and governorships in the November 21 elections, it did not have the best results and lost a good part of its flow of votes. But the opposition’s triumph in Barinas has been a surprise for which in this second attempt they have shown their teeth. Almost the entire national government is deployed in that region, state resources have been mobilized to improve the supply of scarce gasoline and gas throughout the country, gondolas have arrived with refrigerators and electrical appliances to deliver in the speedy campaign that Jorge Arreaza has undertaken, ex-chancellor and ex-husband of Rosa Virginia, the eldest daughter of Hugo Chávez and father of the so-called “Gallito”, the grandson of whom the former president always spoke in his speeches.
Military deployment
24,000 security officials have also been deployed, six times more than in the past process, according to complaints from some NGOs, so the vote will be in a militarized environment. The military contingent that guards the voting machines and material is key. In November, when Superlano had an advantage of a hundred votes, the totalization of the votes was not completed due to the lack of three minutes that the officials did not deliver.
“The control and penalization mechanisms available to the National Electoral Council are insufficient to control a concerted action by the State, in an electoral campaign, such as the one that has been evidenced in Barinas,” Rector Roberto Picón has recognized this week in a series of tweets. in which he listed all the violations to the norm that have been committed.
The one in Barinas is a photograph that explains the country’s democratic crisis: Chavismo is only willing to stand in elections in which it does not lose or threaten Maduro’s permanence in power. The regional passes were part of the government’s negotiations with the opposition, a stop en route to find a way out of the country’s institutional drift. And it has been the electoral process with the greatest guarantees in a long time, such as the change of the referee with the incorporation, for the first time in the Chavista era, of two rectors without ties and affinities with the Government, and the presence of international observation missions that do not they came to the country 15 years ago.
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The new Barinas elections, however, will not have international observation. The European Union mission was expelled after presenting its preliminary report. The opposition delegates have been made aware of the circumstances in which these second elections take place, but it is pending that the mission will return to the country to give its final evaluation, as well as that the political negotiations of Mexico that have remained stagnant.
What seemed like advances have crashed with the absence of separation of powers in Venezuela and the voracity of Chavismo. But this time, the opposition has stood up differently. Not only did she concur in the elections last November, but she also agreed to compete again in Barinas under even more unequal conditions to ratify the victory that they claim to have in their hands. In 2018, in previous regional elections, Chavismo also applied maneuvers in the states of Bolívar and Zulia and seized those governorships won by the opposition.
“The government turned the elections into a plebiscite,” says new opposition candidate Sergio Garrido, in a clearing of the telephone signal during his tour of Barinas this week. “The triumph of Barinas has been a manifestation of hope for the whole country. I am prepared for all scenarios. We have our feet on the ground. We know that they are going to try to twist the process, that they are capable of leading people tied up to vote, that they are trying to buy the conscience of the voters, but we have the support of the people ”, he said.
Superlano himself, who was stripped of his victory in November, leaders and heads of various opposition parties such as Juan Guaidó, Henrique Capriles Radonski (First Justice), Carlos Prosperi (Democratic Action), and even David Uzcátegui (Neighborhood Force), a faction detached from the majority groups, have visited the state in support of Garrido as if it were a national matter.
The Chavista candidate has toured the streets of the State raising a painting with the portrait of his father-in-law, the deceased former president. His appointment was left to Maduro and not to the national leadership of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, something that opened new fissures in the power groups of Chavismo, the Chávez family itself and in the party, which could take its toll on Sunday. Although the electoral polls predict a triumph for the opposition, the effect of the Government’s operation and the registration of a third candidacy supported by an opposition sector that has agreed with the ruling party and that could divide the vote, remains to be seen. It will also be necessary to see if Chavismo will accept to lose for the second time.
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