What Happened Last Week in Venezuela? 🗳️ The Elections Will Be Held on July 28th
Elections will be held on July, international missions were invited and another Vente member was detained.
White smoke at the CNE
On March 5th, the anniversary of Hugo Chávez's death, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced the date of the presidential elections: July 28, the day of Chávez's birth. The Electoral Registry will close on April 16 and the nomination of candidates will be from March 21 to 25, by unanimous decision of the five rectors. If the opposition registers a candidate, considering that María Corina Machado remains banned from running for office, it will have until April 20 to replace hi mor her with its final option – generating an important dilemma within the Unitary Platform.
“Although the date (July 28) respects one of the 15 points of the Barbados agreement, it makes the correct execution of the rest of the technical and political guarantees that were also agreed upon in the agreement signed between the government and the Unitary Platform in 2023 unfeasible,” Eugenio Martínez, a journalist specialized in electoral affairs, said.
However, Martínez said, the CNE violated the Law of Electoral Processes on two occasions: by making a call presenting only dates and not a schedule and by modifying the legal closure of the Registry. “The CNE openly recognizes (in the Electoral Gazette 1048) that the call for the election for July 28 was approved without the electoral schedule being prepared/approved and only the 'relevant milestones of the schedule' were approved”, he explained .
The CNE invited the European Union, the UN, and the Carter Center to be electoral observers in the process. They also invited representatives from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the BRICS, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (UIORES) and the African Union.
Meanwhile, Brazilian President Lula da Silva said he hopes Venezuela's elections will be “as democratic as possible” and called on all parties to recognize the results. At his side, in a meeting, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez asked that the elections have democratic guarantees.
However, in reference to the disqualification of María Corina Machado, da Silva said that "instead of crying, I’d indicate another candidate." Machado, who has been disqualified as “a doña” by Chavismo and its allies, described the phrase as an affront for being a woman.
Deflation?
Venezuela recorded deflation of -0.5% in February, the first time in 20 years, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Finances (OVF). The OVF considers that this is due to a reduction in the exchange rate due to greater sales of foreign currency by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) and less issuance of money by it. However, according to the BCV, February recorded a low inflation of 1.2%. The annualized rate, according to the BCV, closed at 75.91% – the lowest since 2014. Other organizations, such as Ecoanalítica and Albus, also did not register deflation in February.
Guyana, much smaller than Venezuela and with fewer reserves, surpassed Venezuela in oil exports. However, Chevron restarted drilling in a pristine field in Venezuela in a bid to increase production – which could mean the United States will not reimpose restrictions on the company once sanctions return in April. The work is part of a plan to drill up to 30 new wells through 2025, sources told Bloomberg. The flow is expected to increase overall production at Chevron 's three joint ventures with PDVSA by 35% to 250,000 barrels per day by 2025.
More silence
After a post by DW – the German broadcaster– on social networks talking about drug trafficking in the Venezuelan government, Simple TV channel 770 stopped transmitting the DW channel's signal. Since 2010, at least 14 international channels have been pulled from subscription television providers.
Meanwhile, the National College of Journalists warned that creating a General Staff of Communication –as proposed by the Minister of Communication – would lead to having a single “regulatory entity” of “military inspiration.”
Postcards from the crisis
SEBIN arrested Emill Brandt, coordinator of Vente –Machado's party – in Barinas. He is the fifth member of the party, and the fourth state coordinator, to be detained so far this year.
Retirees and pensioners from the state-owned Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana are in negotiations with the holding company to permanently eliminate the delivery of food bags and replace them with the payment of $100 dollars.
CAF Marathon announced that it will change the design of its medal after a complaint from relatives of political prisoners over the use of an image of El Helicoide, used as a detention and torture center, in its Caracas landscape.
Maduro called for this “a great popular consultation” on April 21 at the national level so that “in an exercise of direct democracy” the communal councils choose 4,500 communal projects that will be financed through the Federal Government Council. The measure seems to be another attempt, after the Essequibo referendum, by the government to measure its bases and its mobilization power before the elections.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Venezuela in February, The Times of London reported, unofficially and independently but notifying the British government. Johnson met with Maduro to discuss free elections in Venezuela and tensions with Guyana, in addition to arguing in favor of the Ukrainian cause.
Recommendations
“Although the slowdown in inflation is a good sign, the problem is the cost of the adjustment and that prices still continue to increase at very high rates compared to the rest of the Latin American countries where, except In Argentina, annual inflation is in the single digits,” writes Victor Salmerón in his economics blog, “Added to this is the credit restriction that leaves companies and families with minimal access to financing. In addition, companies face an environment of high tax burden, failures in public services and competition from imported products. In this environment the private sector produces little and also pays low wages. ”
Some species of birds have disappeared from the Caracas Valley since thew 1960s, “but in the 5 municipalities that make up the Caracas Metropolitan Area, there are 376 species of birds, 217 more than those recorded in 1968 for the Caracas Valley,” explains Alejandro Luy, manager of the Tierra Viva Foundation, in an article. The increase is due, in part, to invasive species: some iconic, like the orange-winged amazon and the blue and yellow macaw.