2024-03-27 13:46:46
Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela and registered candidate of the ruling party, and Cilia Flores, his wifeImage: Matias Delacroix/AP Photo/picture alliance
The freedom of parties to nominate their own candidates is an essential principle to ensure the authentic representation of citizen interests and the expression of diversity of opinions in electoral processes.
On March 10, the National Electoral Council (CNE) confirmed on its website that the candidate of the democratic opposition, elected almost unanimously in primaries, María Corina Machado “presents a prohibition to hold public office or function.” ratification of this arbitrariness, Machado and the political forces of the Unitary Platform, with a view to staying within the electoral path, decided by consensus to elect university professor Corina Yoris as the new presidential candidate of the opposition democratic forces. However, the regime of Maduro, once more arbitrarily, prevented the democratic opposition organizations from freely choosing their unitary presidential candidate.
New mechanism to curtail electoral guarantees and freedoms
Elvis Amoroso, who until a few months ago held the position of Comptroller General of the Republic, and who was responsible for the unconstitutional disqualification of María Corina Machado, now in his new capacity as president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), established in this organization a similar trick to curtail the right of opposition parties to nominate their legitimate candidates.
In open contravention of the National Constitution and the Barbados Agreement, Amoroso imposed within the electoral schedule of the upcoming presidential elections an intricate nomination mechanism to allow the Nicolás Maduro regime to block the nomination of the democratic opposition candidate, this time without need to offer any type of legal argument, nor any type of explanation.
Ramón Cardozo, DW columnistImage: Privat
Amoroso established a double filter to block the opposition candidacy. The first of them consisted of eliminating (03/17/24) from the electoral card more than five political parties identified with the democratic opposition, limiting the possibility to only two political organizations of the democratic opposition: MUD and un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT). to nominate the candidate. The second filter required candidates, as an essential requirement for their application, to access the electoral registry web portal and complete the registration form using the party cards enabled by the CNE. Subsequently, it was necessary to personally attend the CNE headquarters to deliver the application documents.
By Monday the 25th, the last day of applications, ten candidates, including Maduro, had been able, without any problems, to register with the CNE. However, the MUD and un Nuevo Tiempo organizations were not allowed access to the CNE application system. They even tried to do it in person at the CNE, but they were prevented from reaching the headquarters. This led the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) to issue a statement denouncing this arbitrariness to the world and requesting an extension. This request was not attended to.
With just a few minutes left before 12 midnight, the closing time of the application process, in a surprising way, the governor of Zulia and head of the Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT) party, Manuel Rosales, accompanied by some members of his party, presented his application at the CNE headquarters, and was registered as a candidate for UNT and the Fuerza Vecinal party.
María Corina Machado maintains her support for Yoris, and does not support Rosales’ nomination. This Tuesday the 26th, María Corina Machado offered a press conference to express her position on the events during the application process.
During his intervention, Machado denounced that the regime had prevented the Unitary Platform from registering Professor Corina Yoris. He stressed that many people felt mocked and emphasized the importance of not minimizing this fact, but rather taking it as a lesson. “Betrayals teach us,” he said. In his opinion, the country has the right to know what happened these days, especially in the last 24 hours.
Likewise, Machado pointed out that “what we had warned regarding for months has finally happened: the regime has selected its candidates.” He argued that if Maduro chooses opposition candidates, then that cannot be considered an election.
For the leader of Vente Venezuela, “the regime has shown its true face along with its accomplices.” She stated that the true opposition is more united than ever and she questioned whether the international community will validate what happened.
Machado reaffirmed that his candidate continues to be Professor Yoris and that she will continue fighting for free elections in Venezuela: “No one will take us off the electoral route, they are the ones who try to get us out and they will not succeed.”
The dilemma of the Unitary Platform
These recent events have placed the other parties of the Unitary Platform before a crucial dilemma: Should they continue supporting Corina Yoris and the fight for true elections, as María Corina Machado maintains, or take advantage of the registered candidacy of Manuel Rosales and try get to election day at all costs?
The internal deliberation of the parties will be complex. It will be debated, for example, to what extent staying on the electoral route entails accepting all the traps and arbitrariness of the Maduro regime, and whether that in the end not only jeopardizes the possibility of victory, but also runs the risk of legitimize the regime. Likewise, it will be explored to what extent it is still possible to maintain unity.
(Jove)
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