The Attorney General of Venezuela, Tareck William Saab, announced this Wednesday the opening of an investigation against the members of the Electoral Commission of the primary elections, together with the members of the NGO Súmate – co-responsible for organizing the citizen consultation of the opposition—, under charges of “usurpation of electoral functions, identity theft, money laundering and criminal association,” under the premise that it was, in their words, “a fraud and a buffoonish act.”
Saab stated that his office is responding to a complaint from José Brito, a representative who is part of the so-called “group of scorpions”, coming from the opposition ranks, aligned with Chavismo, who immediately challenged, along with senior Chavista spokesmen, the legitimacy of the elections, and that has asked the authorities for measures to veto the consultation or render it void, even before they were held. Brito has been supported by other spokespersons, totally unknown, such as Luis Alejandro Ratti.
Luis Alejandro Ratti has even asked for the capture of the members of the National Primary Commission, also raising the crime of “fraud.” The Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office would have also cited Carlos Prosperi, the Democratic Action candidate, who obtained second place with 4% of the votes, and who during the days before the campaign closed spent several days making claims about the alleged personal ignorance of their voting center, denouncing alleged delays in the logistical deadlines of the primary and suggesting that these could be rigged. Democratic Action, Prosperi’s party, through its general secretary, Henri Ramos Allup—finally, the true head of this organization—recognized Machado’s victory in a press conference, and declared it “unobjectionable.”
Saab — who denied that 2 and a half million people voted in the election, adding that “if anything there will have been about 500,000” — reported that his office has appointed two prosecutors to investigate the opposition’s consultation: one with jurisdiction in crime organized, and others in crimes associated with SAIME, the national immigration office.
Almost immediately after finishing the organization of last Sunday’s electoral consultation – with a citizen participation that doubled the expectations of its organizers -, prominent spokespersons for Chavismo, such as Jorge Rodríguez and Cilia Flores, disqualified its political validity, challenged its transparency and raised the existence of fraud.
Jorge Rodríguez issued statements in which he announced that he would request a new meeting with the mediators of Barbados and the opposition representation, headed by Gerardo Blyde, to formalize a claim for the alleged violation of some agreed points.
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According to Rodríguez, among other issues that he considers questionable, the Primary Commission should have convened the National Electoral Council (CNE) to organize the appointment, “the only instance with the constitutional authority to execute it,” and not do it on its own. how it ended up happening. Diosdado Cabello, number two of the regime, commented that all the digits of this consultation were swollen, and that it was “impossible” for a single candidate to take 92 percent of the votes.
During these years there have been several professional associations, political parties and universities that have organized their internal consultations with the assistance of the CNE as an optional offer. The last important one was that of the Central University of Venezuela.
It should be noted that, about four months ago, the president of the Primary Electoral Commission, Jesús María Casal, requested the CNE, then chaired by Pedro Calzadilla, for technical assistance and institutional support from the electoral power to organize the primary. After a prolonged silence, the CNE board abruptly resigned from its functions, without explanations and without a response to Casal’s proposal.
The Primary Commission decided to continue on its own with the organization of the event, assuming the organizational and logistical liabilities raised without the help of the CNE, interested above all in meeting the demands of the scheduled calendar. The primary was subjected, at the same time, to a harsh institutional siege and a discredit campaign.
Calzadilla, a moderate, was replaced in Parliament by Elvis Amoroso, the comptroller who disqualified Machado, a personal record of Nicolás Maduro and a true man of Chavismo. Amoroso had offered Casal all the guarantees to make the consultation, as long as it was postponed to mid-November.
Casal thanked the CNE for the late response, but argued that it was no longer possible to finalize the pact, due to the demands of the calendar and the need to have the task done before December.
In the circles of the opposition parties, it was feared for a long time that Chavismo would decide to advance the presidential elections without consultation, as happened in 2018, and that the circumstance would catch them moved with the election of their candidate. This fear, theoretically, had dissipated with the Barbados agreements, in which the holding of the presidential elections was agreed for the second half of 2024.
For more than 60 years, since the founding of democracy, and even with the arrival of Chavismo, Venezuelan presidential elections have been held in the month of December. The zeal to find the ideal political moment to hold an electoral event that could benefit them has led the ruling party – in the times of Hugo Chávez, and even more so of Nicolás Maduro – to suddenly alter the calendar of elections, presidential or regional, in different occasions.
Although there is undoubtedly apprehension regarding these plans of the Prosecutor’s Office, which have not ceased to surprise many in the opposition, an atmosphere of calm and waiting prevails in the leadership of the Primary Commission, with the certainty that any official accusation could be answered without objections in court
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