With delays in the delivery of electoral materials and skirmishes that managed to dissuade some tables, in the midst of a lot of confusion about the location of the voting centers and with logistics that have gone uphill, the opposition primaries began this Sunday with a notable participation. As predicted by polls, which projected a 60% willingness to vote – a high percentage for a primary election – Venezuelans inside and outside the country are showing a deep desire for change.
Lines of people in private businesses, in the middle of the streets, in a vacant lot, in a park, in a vial or under an improvised awning were seen in Caracas, both in the middle class areas, where the opposition has always been strong. , and also in popular sectors of Petare and the west of the capital, in neighborhoods such as Antímano and La Vega, former bastions of Chavismo.
Political parties, organized neighbors and volunteers were activated to facilitate participation. The opposition primaries ended up being self-managed, without support from the National Electoral Council, which responded late and refused to allow the manual vote that the opposition demanded. “Here we all want to get out of this nightmare,” said Douglas Eittens, 74, from the Las Minas neighborhood, while waiting for one of the young activists from Encuentro Ciudadano, the party of candidate Delsa Solórzano, to search his cell phone for where he It was time to vote this Sunday. “The worst thing we can do is do nothing,” he said.
A few meters away, Will Contreras was organizing a route of jeeps and motorcycles to transport voters. He is a leader of the Fuerza Vecinal party that did not participate in the process and whose leaders asked a few days ago to suspend it because he “was doomed to failure.” At the bases they took another line. “We will not have a candidate, but we are not going to stay at home,” he said. From his improvised transport stop he offered transportation to anyone who was going to vote at authorized points more than two kilometers away.
In Santa Cruz del Este, another neighborhood in the city, voters filled out their ballots on a rusty barrel used as a table. There, 41-year-old Hazel Garcés experienced the miracle of electoral resurrection. For years she appeared as deceased in the electoral registry, but this year she managed to solve the problem with her data and finally she has returned to vote. “We have to change. People can’t handle this anymore,” commented the woman who works as a domestic worker. In her neighborhood, the leaders who control the delivery of subsidized Clap food—the government food program—and other benefits warned that they should not participate. He paid little attention to the threats: “If they take away my bag of food, the truth is I don’t care anymore.”
In that same center, Rubén Márquez, 90 years old and with a cane, and his wife Ilcia de Márquez, had already voted and visited several centers to observe the participation. They had also received photos of their children who voted in Barcelona and Madrid, in the processes organized abroad to attend to that other Venezuela that has risen with the diaspora. The couple discussed whether to mark with an X or fill in the oval on the ballots, but they had two consensuses. “Venezuela is going to change,” they said, convinced, and both voted for María Corina Machado, the leader who has been at the forefront of the preference for several months. “They (Chavismo in power) have to be aware of their failure. “They lost the people,” Rubén added.
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Electoral displaced
Brion Square in Chacaíto, in the middle of the city, has been the refuge of voters from the sectors where Chavismo exerts the most pressure. There they had to take the Metro, bus and travel several kilometers to vote. The residents of the 23 de Enero parish, the emblematic neighborhood where Hugo Chávez voted and where his mausoleum is, mobilized to vote away from the threats of the collectives, the armed shock groups that Chavismo has used in recent years to defend the so-called Bolivarian revolution. Voters from other parishes in the city center also gathered there and at noon they were waiting to be transferred to other centers because theirs could not be installed due to pressure from Chavismo militants.
More than 500 people gathered at the place at noon, in queues that were difficult to distinguish at the beginning and end. “We live without institutions, in total impunity, the money is not enough, we are surrounded by groups that carry long weapons, they threaten to take away our bonuses, the stock market. They have wanted to distract us with all this, but the rejection of the Government is total. We are from January 23, the parish that does not bend. Here we are no longer afraid,” said Celia Fernández, 54 years old. “When people participate it is because they want change.” The woman exercises community leadership in favor of the children of her parish and this year she will graduate as a political scientist. “I entered university late, but I decided to study this to understand what has happened to us.”
The voters of January 23 came out to vote under threats. Days before they said that the Hugo Chávez Battle Units—the organizational structures of the PSUV—would be on the ground floors of each building checking who was leaving or not this Sunday.
Noltis Ledezma, despite everything, left early to work for a long day as coordinator of the center for the electoral “displaced” people in Plaza Brion in Chacaíto. She works in public administration as a teacher with enough years of service to almost retire and was also warned that she should not participate. “It had been a long time since she had seen so much participation. People are tired of threats,” commented the woman, surrounded by people who told her the terminal of her ID and she guided them to the line they should join.
Among the voters in Plaza Brion was journalist Roland Carreño, who this same week was released from prison after spending three years in the Helicoide prison, one of the political prisons that Chavismo maintains in Caracas. As a member of Voluntad Popular, Carreño joined the logistics of the primaries days after leaving prison. For many he went unnoticed, but others applauded him, chanted “freedom, freedom, freedom” and showered him with hugs. He attracted more attention than Tamara Adrián, one of the candidates competing this Sunday who also came up to greet him.
“My departure on this very particular date in which we are immersed in this citizenship process has been very auspicious. The Venezuela that wants us to meet again still stands. I have heard of people who were queuing since five in the morning, people who brought out ironing tables or playing dominoes so that people could vote. That is the spirit of the Democrats,” Carreño said. “We hope that that terrible phrase, “political prisoner,” leaves the Venezuelan scene. Being imprisoned is no more complicated than having to leave your country because you have no opportunities. These efforts will be worth it.”
In the morning under an inclement sun, and in the afternoon under umbrellas, the enormous participation muscle of Venezuelans, after more than a decade trying to achieve political change, has confirmed what the polls said.
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