2020 Venezuelan Parliamentary electoral type event

[Skye]

The date for the next Venezuelan Parliamentary Election has been set for December 6, 2020.

Yesterday, the National Electoral Council increased the number of deputies from 167 to 277.

The opposition is likely to sit out of this. If so, Maduro's party, the PSUV, will surely win in a landslide against token opposition he's been negotiating with. Questions about what will happen to Guaidó since his term expires after the election remain. He's stated he'll continue in his position.

https://apnews.com/27ba3186ea5f8cb4624057169ba5f760

[Skye]

I haven't updated this because, frankly, it's a bit complicated to explain and the election will not be legitimate, so...

I guess the update that needed to be posted is that the opposition will indeed not participate in these elections, as a joint statement was released by all major parties a few weeks ago.

In any case, the post above mostly explained what you need to know.

There is something that needs further explanation though. It's an open secret that most inside the opposition are, to put it mildly, unhappy with Guaidó's leadership. Little to no progress has been made this year, and there is no clear route forward. Guaidó shot a video this week appealing to the opposition leaders with the highest profiles to meet and decide a "new route" in the next few days. It's not exactly a good look, to say the least, considering this (the opposition leaders not agreeing on anything) has been happening for years now, and it's August 2020.

The biggest question remains what will happen to Guaidó in January, when the next congress (likely a Chavista supermajority) will be sworn in and the legality of his position will be on even murkier ground. Furthermore, Guaidó's biggest ally so far has been the Trump administration, and well, you know how his reelection campaign is going. So far, it remains unclear how a Biden administration would deal with Guaidó.

[Skye]

So far, it remains unclear how a Biden administration would deal with Guaidó.

In case Biden wins, he will have to deal with Maduro, too. Not an easy task.

Personally I find Capriles more palatable than Guaidó, but regardless my feelings or opinions right now I know little about the current state of affairs in the Venezuelan opposition. On the other side,  I've read in the news the Maduro regime has intervened the chavista party Tupamaro. Are there big differences or infight within the chavista alliance?

Biden will obviously have to deal with Maduro. I'm not implying he will ignore the issue. But whether his administration will pursue appeasement with the Maduro regime or continue with a hard-line stance remains an open question (let's be honest, it'll likely be the former).

Capriles is borderline irrelevant at the moment. There are glaring signs he's not even staying in line with his own party.

Yes, the Tupamaro affair is true. The Tupamaros are a far left party with communist tendencies. There have always been differences inside the GPP (a.k.a. chavista) coalition.  Now, what you have to understand is that Venezuela isn't the US, where journalists are spilling the beans of intra-party struggles 24/7. As such, very little is made public of intra party dealings inside chavismo in general until fights go public and it becomes glaringly obvious.

As far as elections go, the PSUV always gets the bulk of the votes (The Communist party and the Tupamaros only get a sliver of it). Sometimes, both parties have gone rogue and presented separate candidates in certain elections (for example, some gubernatorial and mayoral candidates, certain lists in parliamentary elections) which can be attributed to the fact that the PSUV always gets the final word on candidates and sometimes the Communists and Tupamaros probably aren't content with the candidates the PSUV imposes. However, for the most part, the coalition mostly remains intact on a national level for big elections. It's not the case this year, since the Communists, Tupamaros, and the PPT agreed to form a different coalition for these elections. Naturally, the PSUV wasn't gonna let a big division like that happen since it wants to get the best results possible, which is what led to the Maduro-aligned Supreme Tribunal to intervene the leadership of both the Tupamaros and the PPT, just as it did with the opposition parties. It remains to be seen if the Communists will be intervened as well.

[Skye]

I haven't updated this because, frankly, it's a bit complicated to explain and the election will not be legitimate, so...

I guess the update that needed to be posted is that the opposition will indeed not participate in these elections, as a joint statement was released by all major parties a few weeks ago.

In any case, the post above mostly explained what you need to know.

There is something that needs further explanation though. It's an open secret that most inside the opposition are, to put it mildly, unhappy with Guaidó's leadership. Little to no progress has been made this year, and there is no clear route forward. Guaidó shot a video this week appealing to the opposition leaders with the highest profiles to meet and decide a "new route" in the next few days. It's not exactly a good look, to say the least, considering this (the opposition leaders not agreeing on anything) has been happening for years now, and it's August 2020.

The biggest question remains what will happen to Guaidó in January, when the next congress (likely a Chavista supermajority) will be sworn in and the legality of his position will be on even murkier ground. Furthermore, Guaidó's biggest ally so far has been the Trump administration, and well, you know how his reelection campaign is going. So far, it remains unclear how a Biden administration would deal with Guaidó.

Will Maduro reward the "controlled opposition" (to call them some way) and give them a handful of seats or will the result just be 100% of seats for PSUV and their allies?

By controlled opposition I am referring to the people who ran against Maduro in 2018 (Falcon and Bertucci, and whoever their allies are)

The increase in the number of seats is the reward. See, with the old method of electing deputies, with a 70-30 result (or worse, which is around what I'm expecting) said opposition would have barely gotten any seats, the old system rewards big wins. Now the number of list deputies by state has drastically increased, and there's a new "national" list which got assigned 48 seats. List deputies are awarded via the D'Hondt system (which I'm sure you're familiar with ), so now, with states awarding anywhere from 3 to 10 list deputies per state (previously it was either only 2 or 3) and 48 deputies via the national list, the "opposition" will have a decent amount of seats even if they get a terrible result and lose every electoral circuit.

[Skye]

Biden will obviously have to deal with Maduro. I'm not implying he will ignore the issue. But whether his administration will pursue appeasement with the Maduro regime or continue with a hard-line stance remains an open question (let's be honest, it'll likely be the former).

I know you didn't mean that. Rather I was implying that maybe Guaidó and his supporters were overconfident about their possibilities and that's the reason why there's a general sisappointment now. It's clear that they and their international allies undesrtimated Maduro's ability to hold on to power. I remember that pnce I believed Maduro's hours were numbered, because there was a media narrative telling us his fall was imminent. Regarding the dichotomy between appeasement and hardline stance, I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Quoting the former Spanish minister and UE's High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell about the Belarusian president today in El País: "Lukashenko is like Maduro, We don't recognize him, but we have to deal with him"

Hmmmm I get what you are trying to say. But it's been obvious for months, in fact, for over a year, that Guaidó is simply not in a good position. The opposition was overconfident indeed, right after Guaidó assumed as interim president, and right until April 30, 2019, when it seemed Maduro's grasp over the military would break would occur, but that was not to be. After that, it's been nothing but wait-and-see, and now the opposition simply doesn't have any sort of leverage for a negotiation, and Guaidó (who has little power) grows irrelevant by the day. He might still stay in charge after January, but even then, he will be on even shakier ground.

[Skye]

What is the opposition up to these days anyway? Establishment media in the United States hasn’t given any information on Venezuela for some time now. Are they united at least in boycotting the election?

Sort of. Most of the opposition parties released a joint statement a few weeks ago saying they would not participate. However, as I said before, some "opposition" will participate, this includes the likes of Henri Falcon's party (AP), the parties of the "Mesa de Diálogo Nacional" which have been in negotiation for Maduro, and candidates of the will participate with the tickets of the big opposition parties but these are not the real ones. 2013 opposition candidate Henrique Capriles released a statement 2 days ago basically saying the opposition had to change course and implying they should participate in the election. This is out of his own party's (PJ) lines and the statement generated much controversy, including backlash from some PJ folks. I've also been told that several regional branches of the parties would have preferred to participate in the election. The "abstain" choice prevailed, but it probably wasn't the unanimous sentiment.

In short, the bulk of the opposition is not going to participate. Maduro will win in a landslide because the parties that will participate don't have the electoral strength to put a decent showing.

As far as "what they're doing", well, basically not much. As I said before, the parties aren't happy with Guaidó (from what I've heard Guaidó operates in a closed environment which doesn't help things with the other big parties that want to have a say in how things are run), but they won't/can't do anything since Guaidó is entrenched (at least for a few more months) and they've had to deal with harassment from Maduro (like the kidnapping of the party tickets). If they're "up to something", I really don't know. I don't have much inside info apart from what I've told you. But the opposition, generally speaking, is in a very tough spot.

[Skye]

Remember when I said a few days ago that Capriles wan't staying in line with his own party? This happened yesterday:

https://twitter.com/PattyLaya/status/1299472953470484482

Requesens is a Deputy (a.k.a. Congressman) from Táchira's 4th Circuit, which includes parts of the San Cristóbal Metropolitan Area as well as the municipalities to the south of the state. He was jailed 2 years ago when chavismo accused him of forming part of a plot to assasinate Maduro. So what's the deal with his release, then?

It looks like it's part of a negotiation between the government and sections of the opposition, as well as some (so far undisclosed?) international mediators. What I gather is that his release preludes the release of other political prisoners in the country (and maybe some other concessions?), as sort of a show of goodwill from the Maduro regime to demonstrate he's willing to make concessions so that the opposition participates in these upcoming elections.

Now, it's sort of an open secret that Capriles, who himself was the opposition candidate against Maduro in 2013, isn't in favor of the direction Guaidó has taken, and has suggested that the opposition should participate in the upcoming elections. As I explained earlier, this is out of line with his own party's (Primero Justicia, a.k.a PJ) line, who have explicitly backed the "we're not going to participate in the election" strategy that the other big parties are following.

A Venezuelan journalist named Eugenio Martínez has been cryptically tweeting for a few days that there is a section of the opposition that was considering participating in the election, and yesterday he confirmed they had been negotiating with Maduro:

https://twitter.com/puzkas/status/1299474985032069126

The tweet says that Capriles and UNT Deputy Stalin González (who served as VP of the National Assembly the year Guaidó was proclaimed interim President) formed part of a "complicated process" that could end with the release of 100 political prisoners, and in a following tweet, he says that other negotiations could take place so that a "clearer electoral and political outlook" emerges in the next few weeks.

In short, it looks increasingly likely that Capriles will participate in the election, probably with the help of other opposition members who aren't pleased with the direction of Guaidó. We'll know soon enough, the deadline for submitting candidacies was delayed from August 26 to September 4, so this week maybe we'll get some answers.

[Skye]

Interesting development. Even if they have been traded as a part of a complex negotiation, I think the release of prisoners is always good news

Oh don't get me wrong, we're all happy Requesens has been liberated. It's just that usually, when they release a political prisoner, they jail others afterwards. They call it a "revolving door".

How does voting work for the (now massive) diaspora population?

It doesn't.

Joking aside, in theory, you have to legally reside within the country you now live to be able to register to vote. In practice... well, I don't think Venezuelans abroad have been able to vote since 2013? By that time, only 100K Venezuelans were registered to vote abroad (just to give you an idea, the number of Venezuelans living abroad right now is over 5 million, which is over 15% of the population of the country). AFAIK, Venezuelans abroad could only vote in Presidential Elections, Referendums (though there aren't results for Venezuelans abroad for the 2007 and 2009 referendums) and for the Election to the Latin American Parliament, which goes along with the Parliamentary Election.

For the 2015 Parliamentary Elections, chavismo eliminated direct voting for the Latin American Parliament, so Venezuelans abroad couldn't vote there. For the 2018 Presidential Election only 107K (!!!) Venezuelans were registered to vote abroad, even though by that time between 3 and 4 million Venezuelans had already left the country. Even more so, I don't know if Venezuelans abroad were even able to vote (if fairness, turnout would have been minimal), since the official results don't show votes from Venezuelans abroad.

For these next elections, those of us who now reside in another country can't vote, because Venezuelans abroad can't vote in Parliamentary elections.

[Skye]

Interesting development. Even if they have been traded as a part of a complex negotiation, I think the release of prisoners is always good news

Oh don't get me wrong, we're all happy Requesens has been liberated. It's just that usually, when they release a political prisoner, they jail others afterwards. They call it a "revolving door".

We use "revolving door" with other meaning, as you probably know. I get that it's not easy to deal with someone as dishonest as Maduro and that there are no guarantees to participate in elections. Still, I would not be contrary to engage in nnegotiations to unlock the situation. Said this, there exists a risk of being fooled. Also, without unity in the oposition it's hard to go anywhere. It's extremely complicated

I actually didn't, TBH. I just read the Wikipedia article about it, hilarious. Never heard of the term in that context in Venezuela.

Here's the thing with negotiations. The Maduro regime doesn't have any sort of goodwill, it will (and has constantly used in the past) use negotiations to 1. buy time, 2. promote splits inside the opposition. Now, I'm not saying a negotiation is either impossible or completely undesirable (if Maduro does go away, it will likely feature a negotiated transition), but the point is that the opposition doesn't have any sort of leverage at the moment (not one that's immediately obvious, at least), as it's probably in its worst position since Guaidó was proclaimed president.

The biggest problem, however, is the fact that the Maduro regime has only been negotiating with Capriles (and whoever is with him), as opposed to the rest of the opposition, and that is a huge red flag, because Capriles 1. His standing in the national scene has been greatly diminished since 2013 and he holds no elected office, and 2. is playing alone and therefore probably doesn't have much leverage for a negotiation process.

But yes, as you said, it is very complicated, and it's not made easy by the fact that there isn't unity inside the opposition. Now, I'm not in favor of the "unity for the sake of unity" mentality that has reigned inside the MUD since its inception - mostly because it can prove to be extremely harmful if you don't care about letting in a bunch of crooks and potential traitors for "muh unity" (the Luis Parra debacle should have made that much clear) - constantly going at each other throats and having a "support what I want or get bent" mentality certainly doesn't help.

[Skye]

Maduro is playing well his cards

https://www.dw.com/en/venezuelas-nicolas-maduro-releases-several-opponents-from-custody/a-54775757

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that he had pardoned more than 100 opposition politicians, including associates of opposition leader Juan Guaido.

Those pardoned by the presidential decree include legislator Freddy Guevara, who sought asylum in the Chilean diplomatic residence, as well as Roberto Marrero, who served as chief of staff to Guaido.

"We hope that these measures taken by the Bolivarian government help maintain the democratic focus of all of these political actors," said Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez at a news conference, saying the decree would take effect from publication.

"The government's intention is to deepen the process of national reconciliation for national union so that political issues are settled by peaceful means and by electoral means," added Rodriguez.

(...)

The presidential decree did not mention Leopoldo Lopez, one of the opposition's most prolific leaders, who was imprisoned in 2014 for leading protests against Maduro. Lopez currently lives in the Spanish diplomatic residence.

It also did not include military officers put away on charges of plotting to overthrow Maduro (...) 

I'm reading in La Vanguardia that Henqique Capriles has not been pardoned and is still banned from public posts.

I get the impression the sudden release of these politicians has caught Guaidó unaware, as well as contributes to deepen divisions within the opposition camp. The UN High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet stated she's pleased and appreciates the decision made by Maduro, while the EU's high Representative Josep Borrell said the release is good news and a prerequisite for free and fair elections. Leaving aside this move might be considered an attempt of legitimizing and cleaning the image of his regime, it's clear that Maduro is one step ahead of the opposition once again. In my opinion, Guaidó cannot sit around and do nothing claiming that it's a trap. When you play a chess game and the adversary moves a piece, you must make a move. The opposition needs a better contender at this moment

The opposition is currently "imploding". Like, right now. As in, Capriles is tweeting ATM his displeasure at Guaidó, who earlier today denounced Capriles's moves. The situation is rapidly unfolding. I'll wait for it to develop further before I make a judgement.

[Skye]

Let me expand a bit. The period for submitting alliances and candidacies is over. It's a rather long list of parties and alliances, but aside from the Chavista coalition, the one you really want to pay attention to is the Fuerza del Cambio (Henrique Capriles's) party, especially if he does end up forming an alliance with the Democratic Alliance. Candidacies can be modified all the way until November, so it may be a while before we know who exactly is running and with who. Even now we don't have complete information, since the CNE hasn't released the candidacies submitted.

What's happening with Capriles? He ended up submitting candidacies, which he claims are just "placeholders" in case electoral conditions are met. In other words, he's willing to participate but the decision to do so is, apparently, not final. He has called the election to 1. Be postponed due to COVID concerns, and 2. Feature an "electoral monitoring mission" (dunno exactly what it's called in English) from the UE. Both of these conditions have already been rejected, since Maduro himself said the elections will happen on the scheduled day and won't be postponed, and the UE rejected the electoral monitoring mission just yesterday.

There's also the issue of Capriles's party, Primero Justicia, which has been hilariously trying to dance its way around the Capriles dilemma. They released a statement after Capriles made clear his intention to participate, saying they did not support the "electoral farce" and would stick to Guaidó's plan, and said all party members who were to participate in the election would be out of the party. Here's the thing: since Capriles not also isn't 100% participating in the election as of today, and he also can't be a candidate since chavismo barred him from running for office, he technically hasn't broken the rules and PJ has stepped short of kicking him out of the party.

I would love to say this is because PJ is being spineless, but the truth is this may be because the party as a whole isn't completely on board with the top brass' position. Since Julio Borges and Tomás Guanipa, the biggest names in PJ outside of Capriles, hold "important" positions within Guaidó's interim government, they have made their intention to stick with Guaidó clear, but are curiously silent about Capriles. I've been told many inside the party are not happy with them following whatever Guaidó does, especially considering many of them probably don't approve of Guiadó at the moment. So my gut feeling (and don't consider this a fact) is that there is currently a big fight inside PJ about their current standing in the national scene, and the big wigs would like to avoid a complete schism, so they're trying to minimize the issue as much as possible, including ruling out kicking Capriles out of the party for the time being.

[Skye]

Thought it was time to update this. Henrique Capriles has basically withdrawn from the event, given that his main goal was delaying the election and Maduro made it clear that wasn't going to happen. That means the main competitors to the PSUV are all minor parties who won't even participate in a coalition, so a PSUV landslide is to be expected. I personally expect they'll win with around 70% of the vote, turnout will be low of course.

Yesterday, the CNE unveiled their new voting machines (most of the old ones were burnt down in a fire months ago) with a rather... uh, flashy event:

https://twitter.com/Gbastidas/status/1314601708459302913

[Skye]

Thought it was time to update this. Henrique Capriles has basically withdrawn from the event, given that his main goal was delaying the election and Maduro made it clear that wasn't going to happen. That means the main competitors to the PSUV are all minor parties who won't even participate in a coalition, so a PSUV landslide is to be expected. I personally expect they'll win with around 70% of the vote, turnout will be low of course.

Yesterday, the CNE unveiled their new voting machines (most of the old ones were burnt down in a fire months ago) with a rather... uh, flashy event:

A "suspicious" one?

Dunno. The first thing chavismo did after it happened was accuse the US of perpetrating the fire, because of course they did.

I do think it's possible (even likely) chavismo burnt them down, however, many of these types of things in Venezuela can be explained due to simple incompetence, so who knows.

[Skye]

Well you got to hand it to the Chavistas for knowing how to read the room so as to divide the opposition

What exactly is the various parties opinions on social issues anyway?

LMAO Maduro is a homophobe. He made an homophobic remark about Capriles when he was running for President a few years ago (He called him the equivalent of a "F*gg*t"). It's not that chavismo doesn't have support of LGBT voters or don't field LGBT candidates (As I understand, the chavista mayor of Caracas, Erika Farías, is a lesbian), but it's clear they

Anyways, the opposition is, in theory, in favor of gay marriage at least? It's not the first time I've said this in this forum, but policy and discussion on social issues have taken a back seat these years given that the opposition doesn't have real power. IIRC, the 4 major parties are "pro-LGBT" broadly speaking. The party that is probably the most supporting on the issue being Leopoldo Lopez's Voluntad Popular (they have the only transgendered deputy in the National Assembly, Tamara Adrián), and the most tepid support probably coming from Primero Justicia, which doesn't have a clear ideology anyways but has a few social conservatives inside the party. There was a controversy a few months ago, where VP sharply critizied PJ for voting down a (mostly symbolic?) pro-LGBT law (I don't exactly remember what it entailed) despite the fact that their Twitter account had just recently tweeted in support of LGBT population.

That said, Venezuela is still a very conservative country with regards to the issue. We're probably years behind most countries on LGBT laws and overall attitudes from the people in the country.

[Skye]

Leopoldo López left the Spanish embassy in Caracas yesterday and now is in Madrid

https://twitter.com/el_pais/status/1320356274178039809?s=19

I wonder what he does now. He's been really quiet ever since he left house arrest.

Anyways, my opinion of Leopoldo isn't exactly positive, but I'm glad he's out of Venezuela.

[Skye]

Sorry for the double post.

Yesterday, some dude named Pedro Sánchez, who's apparently the *checks tweet* Secretary General of the PSOE and probably doesn't hold any other important positions whatsoever, met with Leopoldo López at the party's headquarters at the Ferraz street in Madrid:

https://twitter.com/PSOE/status/1321113114679672832

[Skye]

From the outside looking in, it feels like this is one ever expanding circus that PSUV barely has a lid on. From all the leadership changes to the parties shifting back and forth from boycotting and participation. No doubt they’re going to rig it enough to win, but it feels as if they are heading towards loss no matter what.

IDK, if any of y’all disagree that know more I urge you to correct me.

Dunno exactly what could point to a "loss". The communists breaking from the PSUV isn't nearly enough damage dealt when they have very few adversaries remaining. The PCV has never been big enough on it's own to achieve significant results outside some local races (they have broken a few times with the PSUV in the past in some local elections). The election is not competitive at the moment, and I doubt that will change. If anything, they could end up in the 60's instead of the 70's, but that's about it.

That said, I *have* read there are divisions inside the PSUV about how they are handling things. These divisions are never reported properly, instead we have people (ranging from journalists to pundits to politicians) leaving tea leaves on Twitter saying how "there are divisions inside the PSUV" but most of the time it's never clearly expressed what exactly is going on.

For now, a PSUV landslide is to be expected, what comes next is a mystery.

I should add, BTW, that the Guaidó government, or whatever you'd like to call it anyway, is preparing for a "Consulta Popular", which is basically an election (of sorts, online) on how things should be handled by the interim government going forward. I have honestly not paid too much attention to it. IMO, the Guaidó people are delusional if they think the people are going to care about it.

[Skye]

Sorry for the double post.

Yesterday, some dude named Pedro Sánchez, who's apparently the *checks tweet* Secretary General of the PSOE and probably doesn't hold any other important positions whatsoever, met with Leopoldo López at the party's headquarters at the Ferraz street in Madrid:

Obviously there are diplomatic issues motivating that Sánchez welcomes López as PSOE leader and not as PM. The tweet also states the Sánchez party supports a political solution in Venezuela

It's ironic that Leopoldo López is coming to a country that, according to the right-wing opposition, is under a social-communist dictatorship modelled in the Bolivarian regime of Venezuela. Apparently some rich Venezuelans are buying residential property in the Salamanca neighbourhood of Madrid, which is beginning to be known as Little Caracas


https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana/2017-07-03/elite-venezuela-pisos-madrid-barrio-salamanca_1408503/

Leopoldo is the leader of a party that is a member of the Socialist International, which I'm sure you can guess certain Spanish party at the government is also a member of. Well, it not only makes sense that he comes here because of that, after all, Spain should be our ally against Maduro, even if the Podemos people would love to ignore the issue.

Also, yes, the tale of wealthy Venezuelans buying property in Salamanca (and pretty much other upscale areas of Madrid) is a bit old. Also, like the article said, "enchufados" (that's what we call people who do corrupt business on behalf of the Maduro regime and get filthy rich because of it) are quite notorious among those. It's well known family members of high-ranking members of chavismo live abroad surrounded by the wealth. For example, the son of the Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino López, lives in Madrid: https://www.abc.es/estilo/gente/abci-viven-noche-madrilena-hijos-chavismo-201901260318_noticia.html

[Skye]

The article from El Confidencial I linked highlights the presence of chavistas (let alone the ABC), but the key word is Venezuelan Elites. While the Maduro regime is remarkably corrupt, the Venezuelan governments that preceded the accession of Hugo Chavez were also lenient with corruption. Corruption and flight of capital are nothing new

Corruption is hardly anything new in the country, and like you said, not exclusive to one side. It's one thing that, sadly, isn't going to disappear overnight once chavismo goes away.

That's not to say any random wealthy Venezuelan businessman acquired his fortune through it (though a name mentioned in the article you linked, the Derwicks, certainly are corrupt as hell). But from the tone of your post, I just don't think you understand how unprecedented the corruption issue has been under chavismo, especially in these later years. It's a really stunning thing, nothing in the modern history of Venezuela compares. Not the corruption during the so called "Cuarta República". Especially infuriating is the corruption deals behind the "CLAPs", the Maduro regime's food boxes that the starving Venezuelan population rely on in order to eat and that have been used as forms of social control. If you have the time, a Venezuelan investigative journalism outlet called Armando Info has an entire section dedicated to articles of the issue: https://armando.info/Series/Details/24

[Skye]

It's possible that corruption under Chávez and Maduro is more serious than I thought, but you have the precedent of Carlos Andres Pérez. The tenure of that Venezuelan president is regarded a paradigm of corruption and waste. Anyway the main question is not which is the most corrupt period, rather it's worrying that apparently nobody is willing to tackle the problem.  There must be a link between rampant corruption and gross inequality

Yes, it's really worrying that corruption isn't handled more seriously. It's also one of the main reasons why I never bothered to become a member of any opposition political party. When it happens, everyone just turns a blind eye on it. But I guess that discussion will have to wait until chavismo is out of power and laws are able to be implemented effectively again.

With regards to Carlos Andrés, the way I understand it is that Congress (and, well, his own party too) wanted to get rid of him. Pinning corruption charges on was the easiest way to do it. Not that the charges weren't accurate, but they weren't exactly why he was ousted.

I get that "it's not about which is the most corrupt period", and I'm not trying to sound like I'm making excuses for corruption in the past, but the problem with that argument is that the corruption under chavismo has been enough to absolutely annihilate the country. "Mismanagement" is a word that has been thrown a lot to describe chavismo's practices, but is it really mismanagement when every chavista high ranking officer/businessman/military man's aim is just to steal however much they can?

[Skye]

Hi. This is happening on Sunday. Here's two short articles detailing the event:

https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2020/11/26/venezuelas-regime-will-win-the-legislative-election-by-a-lot?utm_campaign=editorial-social&utm_medium=social-organic&utm_source=twitter

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-04/why-venezuela-opposition-is-boycotting-congress-vote-quicktake

Guaidó is actually campaigning for his "Consulta Popular" thing, he actually went to my state (Carabobo) and held a rally in Valencia, my hometown, in a neighborhood not far from mine. I still think what he's campaigning for is useless and frankly demonstrates how aimless his interim presidency has become.

[Skye]

Leaked ballot of the 2020 Venezuelan parliamentary election:

lmao. That was basically the 2018 Election.

Anyways, controversy arose today when Maduro voted in a voting center at Fuerte Tiuna, (a sort of citadel that's home to the most notorious military base in the country) instead of his usual voting center in working class Catia, where he was born.

https://twitter.com/victoramaya/status/1335647312438304771

So, what the tweet is saying is that earlier today, the CNE webpage listed Maduro's voting center as the one in Catia, and then changed to Fuerte Tiuna in the afternoon when Maduro was voting. That sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, it's not possible.

[Skye]

https://twitter.com/ve_cne/status/1335823540046716929

No surprises here, abysmal turnout (which is probably even lower than what is being reported), Chavismo's GPP is winning in a landslide, and in fact it's getting almost the exact same % that Maduro got in his 2018 election.

https://twitter.com/puzkas/status/1335774107737186304

Puzkas (a well informed Venezuelan journalist that covers elections) is saying the GPP is on track to win 240 out of 277 Deputies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've tried to check for the results myself but the CNE webpage is down.

[Skye]

I am kind of curious to see how PCV does. Getting into the parliament by accusing Maduro of not being "bolivarian enough" is uh... interesting lol

This tweet says "2.08%" of seats which means they got... a whooping 1 seat of the National List, and that'll probably be it. Can't expect anything more considering they got only 2.7% of the vote.

https://twitter.com/ve_cne/status/1335843479562432512

[Skye]

Guaidó's "Consulta Popular" (basically a sort of referendum on what his interim government should do) is happening today. Well, since it's online, it's been going since the week started, I think, but today is like, the "in person" event where those who want to vote in person do so.

Don't ask me what's going to come out of this. I don't know. I suppose Guaidó is simply looking for a strong turnout.