Venezuela: Machado sweeps anti-Chavista primaries; government calls elections a “farce”

The government of Venezuela labeled “farce” and on Tuesday discredited the seriousness of the vote in the opposition primary elections, in which the political leader María Corina Machado swept to become Nicolás Maduro’s rival in the 2024 presidential elections.

Maduro’s comments from a day earlier, alleging that the call had been a “fraud”, they escalated on Tuesday to a whole statement before the press by the president of the National Assembly and close collaborator of the president, Jorge Rodríguez, when he denounced that it had not been guaranteed that there would be a single vote per voter.

The criticisms were dismissed by Machado.

In an attempt to destroy the triumphant atmosphere of the opposition, which managed to mobilize 1.6 million Venezuelans to the polls, according to the voting figures of the National Primary Commission, Rodríguez declared that the figures were inflated. “What happened on Sunday is not verifiable, that was not even an election“, critical.

The ruling party and its allies have been trying for months to hinder the call of the opposition that put aside its divisions to bet on a unity candidate who would run in next year’s presidential elections, in an attempt to forge a change of course in the country. .

Machado, who declared herself the winner, in fact, participated as a candidate knowing that she was disqualified from holding public office for 15 years that the State Comptroller’s Office imposed on her in June—without any criminal conviction against her—and that It casts doubt on whether he will be able to run for the presidency.

Rodríguez questioned that this figure of at least 1.6 million participants — who had to be registered on the electoral roll — was mathematically impossible, due to the small number of voting centers and the estimated time it takes for each voter to vote.

“They turned out so many voters, they launched operation ‘morrocoy’ – an expression that refers to deliberately slowing down a process – and they delayed the lines. They put people who had already voted back in line, they voted again… That is, the universal principle of an election was not guaranteed, which is: one voter, one vote“, said.

Faced with the avalanche of criticism from the ruling party, the Venezuelan opposition leader came forward to dismiss the accusations and praise the participation of Venezuelans. Machado highlighted that the voters themselves made the primaries their own by participating in the counting of the votes in the electoral precincts.

“The great loser was Maduro. Who are they kidding? They don’t even deceive their own people“said the former legislator in a press conference. She highlighted that the figures “They exceeded our best estimates” and that with the government’s complaints, “It has already become clear what kind of losers Maduro and his regime are”.

On Sunday, Machado garnered a popular support of 92.56%, a large advantage with which she emerged as the winner with the count at almost 65%, according to the results of the organizing commission.

The second candidate Carlos Prosperi was left with 4.45% support and just over 70,000 votes. And the third, Delsa Solórzano, did not even reach 1%. With the exception of Prosperi, the remaining eight candidates recognized Machado’s victory and set out to build a great electoral alliance.

“All the minutes could be photographed and people will be able to compare those images,” Machado emphasized. “There has not been an election with greater electoral and citizen scrutiny” than the primaries, the opposition leader insisted.

Rodríguez, for his part, stressed: “Since we already knew that they were coming up with the farce, we put a person in each voting center to count the votes one by one. The actual installed capacity did not reach one million voters”.

With the exception of Prosperi, the remaining eight candidates recognized Machado’s victory and put themselves in order to build a great electoral alliance with a view to the presidential elections that will be held in the second half of 2024.

The primaries were open to 20 million voters. 3,100 voting centers were set up, a quarter of the electoral infrastructure usual in national, regional and municipal elections.

Additionally, 397,168 Venezuelans residing abroad could vote in 80 cities in 30 countries.

Maduro’s faithful ally, Rodríguez, also announced that he will “immediately request that the Barbados agreement verification commission, which is made up of Dr. Gerardo Blyde and I, meet to evaluate this situation, because point four of the agreement on the promotion of political and electoral rights says that the parties will ensure that the electoral conditions are applicable to the rest of the electoral processes that must be developed”.

Blyde, representative of the so-called Democratic Unitary Platform, an opposition bloc that since 2021 has tried to dialogue in Mexico with representatives of the Venezuelan government and that recently reached an agreement in Barbados, was not available for comment.

The primaries were held less than a week after the resumption of dialogue between a part of the opposition and government delegates, with a view to guaranteeing that the presidential elections are free and fair. The talks resumed after a year of being suspended.

Despite these approaches, several of the most popular opposition leaders, including Machado, still face disqualifications from holding public office that leave in doubt whether they will be able to register their unitary candidacy to participate in the 2024 elections.

Critics of the Maduro government denounce that disqualification has been used for years as a political weapon.