The leader opposing the Venezuelan regime, Henrique Capriles, said that participation in the non-binding referendum held in the country this Sunday (3), on the territorial dispute with Guyana, reached 2,110,864 voters, which represents an abstention of 89 .8% in a census with 20.69 million people eligible to vote.
Minutes after the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced a total of 10,554,320 votes, without clarifying whether this corresponds to the same number of voters or the number of questions answered, Capriles highlighted that there are five votes per voter, considering that the consultation included five questions for each participant. “According to (CNE president) Elvis Amoroso, today’s turnout was 2,110,864 voters. There were five votes per voter”, wrote the opposition leader on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
Capriles, one of the anti-Chavistas who voted in the referendum, believes that dictator Nicolás Maduro “turned the day into a resounding failure.”
According to the CNE’s first assessment, 95.93% of Venezuelans who participated in the consultation responded affirmatively to the fifth question, on whether or not they agreed with the annexation of the disputed area with Guyana to the national map and the creation of a new region called Guyana Essequiba. The CNE did not report the percentage of abstention.
With this result, the Maduro regime obtained popular support to develop, according to the question, “an accelerated plan to fully serve the current and future population” of this area, which includes granting citizenship to the 125,000 people who live in the area. , most of them indigenous communities.
In the vote, promoted by the government and part of the opposition, 95.94% of Venezuelans also agreed to oppose “by all means” the claim of Guyana, which controls the territory in question, to “unilaterally dispose” of the waters that Caracas considers “delimitation pending”.
Furthermore, 95.40% of voters supported the idea of not recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in this 19th century controversy, which has been resolved in the court since 2018. Last Friday (1st), the ICJ ordered Venezuela to “refrain from actions that threaten the disputed region with Guyana.”
Like the government, 98.11% of voters understood the Geneva Agreement as the “only valid legal instrument to reach a solution” in this dispute, in reference to the document signed in 1966, according to which the parties undertake to find a “satisfactory” outcome for both nations through direct negotiations.
The referendum also showed that 97.83% of Venezuelans who went to the polls reject, “by all means”, the Paris Arbitration Award, Guyana’s legal argument in the dispute and which defined the current borders in 1899. (With EFE Agency)
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