The Minister of University Education of Venezuela, Tibisay Lucenapassed away this Wednesday at his 63 years oldAfter suffering from cancer for years. The news of his death has caused a stir within Venezuela and in other countries where thousands of Venezuelans now live. She was the one who presided over the National Electoral Council (CNE) for 14 years. Or what is the same: 18 elections, some of them pointed out as fraudulent by the opposition and a part of the international community, such as the re-election of Maduro in 2018 and the vote for a National Constituent Assembly in 2017.

In the repertoire of memories left by the sociologist, her desire to exclusively disseminate irreversible trends stands out every time elections were held, for which reason Venezuelans were forced to wait, sometimes until dawn, for her to announce the winners of the elections. contentions. Her opinion was a holy word. The rector’s face became one of the protagonists in the political story of the countrywho believed and opted for the electoral route to resolve conflicts, some of them charged with street protests that resulted in several dozen deaths.

Only in Two occasions Lucena came on stage to announce defeats for Chavismo: in 2007, when 50% rejected the constitutional reform proposal promoted by the deceased Hugo Chavez (1999-2013), and in 2015, when the opposition won the qualified majority of the National Assembly (AN, Parliament). The rest of the time, his walk from the CNE counting room to the press area was the omen of a new triumph for the Bolivarian revolution, which won the majority of mayors, governors and seats for legislators between 2006 and 2020, a period in the fact that promulgated four presidential victories for chavismo.

While in the first half of his management was respected by the majority of the oppositionAfter Chávez’s death in 2013, his integrity began to be questioned by anti-Chavismo, which escalated in its accusations, especially since 2017, when he organized the election of the National Constituent Assembly, a process seen as fraudulent by government adversaries and many countries.

Sanctioned by the United States and the European Union

Henceforth, the rector was sanctioned by the United States “for weakening democracy and human rights in Venezuela,” while the European Union also applied restrictive measures due to his responsibility for the “continuing deterioration of the situation” in the country. All the suspicions about her Chavista militancy were confirmed, in the opinion of the opposition, once she left the CNE in 2020, after which she was “rewarded” with presidential appointments that included the appointment as minister in October 2021.

He chavismo, to whom she was always close, has fully lamented the death, with a host of messages on social networks in which they describe Lucena as a person of “integrity, courage, loyal to her principles and ideals, defender of democracy, daughter distinguished from Venezuela” and as a woman “irreducible and full of love. The opposition, or at least the majority, which in the past pointed to it as a “accomplice of the dictatorship“He has remained silent after the news broke, a position different from that of social networks, in which this death became the most commented topic, within Venezuela and in other countries where thousands of Venezuelans now live.

In their last 18 months of life was in charge of the university portfolio as Minister of University education. To this charge came the October 19, 2021at which time he began to lead the recovery of the infrastructure of public universities, which in its last years suffered deterioration in the midst of the economic crisis.