By Marina Menéndez Quintero on July 25, 2024
THINKING about the post-electoral scenario in Venezuela makes one fear moments of tension already latent and announced by a war of polls rarely seen in that country since the arrival of the Bolivarian process, and preceded by the reluctance of the right-wing Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) to assume the commitment to respect what the National Electoral Council (CNE) issues on Sunday night, voting day.
The malevolent hypothesis of fraud, launched by the representatives of the PUD when it was impossible to nominate as their candidate the politician María Corina Machado -disqualified to hold public office since 2015-, was the first sign that there will be the repeated attempt to disregard the computations if they favor President Nicolás Maduro, as announced by a group of polls opposed to the opinion polls that insist that the PUD candidate is the one with the highest voting intentions and, even, show supposedly overwhelming rates in his favor.
Credible local analysts denounce that such polls are manipulated and opposition advisors quoted by them, such as economist Francisco Rodriguez, have acknowledged that the polls are overstating the opposition vote in order to create a favorable perception for their candidate.
Meanwhile, the candidate finally registered in representation of that hard right wing, Edmundo Gonzalez, seeks to capture the followers of Maria Corina, the real protagonist of the campaign acts of a former diplomat without charisma, transcendence or any serious government project other than delivering the country back to what was the IV Republic. Gonzales is, simply, the new puppet of that right wing and he walks at the whim of Maria Corina, to the point that a planned campaign event, which Edmundo did not attend, due to illness, was led by her!
There should be no doubt that the PUD will try to illegitimize the process by ignoring the results that do not suit it; nor can it be questioned that, otherwise, it would sweep away even the red emblems of “chavismo” and would simply put the country in the hands of its mentors: the United States.
It is difficult to think of this “supposedly denied”, in the Venezuelan way of saying. It would cost the reaction a lot to disarticulate the social plans and, as much as that, the commitment of the very important part of the people who are not only beneficiaries but protagonists of those programs; to destroy the commercial ties in search of the multipolar world developed by the executive despite the US pressure and its punitive measures, and all the institutional framework that has democratized Venezuelan life since 1999, when Hugo Chávez came to power. But that right wing aligned to the imperial powers will not hesitate to try.
Meanwhile, efforts of the Government and the institutions to guarantee a post-electoral peace are visible, which that same right wing has made precarious in several recent moments of the national life, such as the guarimbas of 2017 and the rampage murder of any citizen identified as “chavista”. The human pyres of those days were a chilling warning of how far the viciousness of certain sectors opposed to the revolutionary process can go.
Maduro has not only defended the respect for the electoral result summoned by the highest body of the process with that document of commitment not subscribed by the PUD; he also created a Peace Front formed in recent days and has reiterated the intention of establishing a great national dialogue once the elections are concluded.
The known but reiterated warning this week by the President of the Supreme Court, Tarek William Saab, that no counting or issuance of supposedly parallel data to the CNE will be allowed, and that those who disregard such regulation may be penalized, constitutes another warning that those sectors are determined to make the electoral judge invisible and damage peace once the polls have closed.
An interesting article of the site Mision Verdad has revealed the creation in Miami of an alleged computer center set up by people related to Machado’s party, Vente Venezuela, from where they intend to declare a fraud on election day, while spokespersons of the PUD affirm that they will only recognize the ballots prepared by their representatives in the different voting centers.
All these actions are ultimately part of the great disinformation campaign that has been the basis of all the increased aggression against Venezuela since 2015, during the U.S. administration of Donald Trump, and after the arrival of Nicolás Maduro.
The punitive measures against the national economy that tied up the possibilities of PDVSA and, with that, prevented the revenues on account of the main item of the country, tried to point out Venezuela as a failed State by transferring to the executive the burden that those sanctions represented to the stomachs and pockets of the people.
The attempt to illegitimize the Government by means of the laughable appointment from Washington of the opposition candidate Juan Guaidó as supposed interim president, today defeated and sheltered in the United States, was another manipulative element.
Having overcome adversities in the economic field with the development of agriculture and the establishment of new trade agreements that diversified the spectrum of investment and oil exports, are successes that are noted to Maduro, just as it was the prestige, solidity and seriousness of the Government that brought down those attempts to illegitimize it, with the company of the Chavista people and a Bolivarian Armed Forces that remains faithful to the institutionality and the legacy of Hugo Chávez.
Such elements should not be forgotten by the citizenry, and much less dismissed by the right wing at this crucial moment.
Marina Menéndez Quintero is an international analyst for Juventud Rebelde newspaper. She has covered electoral processes in Nicaragua and Venezuela and is a recipient of the Latin American José Martí Journalism Award from Prensa Latina, and National José Martí Award for Life’s Work (2023).
Source: Cuba Periodistas, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English