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The confrontation between the Caracas regime and the opposition has found a new battlefield: public universities. This Tuesday, August 27, a decision of the Supreme Court of Justice on the new rules of university elections caused an uproar among students and teachers.
According to the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice, Venezuelan public universities must organize elections to renew their administrations. To do this, the judges set new rules.
Voters will now be divided into five groups: teachers, all students and graduates, but also administrative staff and workers. Each vote has the same weight. To be elected, a candidate must obtain an absolute majority in at least three of the five categories.
This sentence of the Supreme Court sparked an uproar in Venezuelan academia. Because in this country, the autonomy of public universities is guaranteed by the Constitution. Many of them may be tempted to oppose the holding of elections following rules imposed by judges.
But the court warns: if within six months, the universities did not organize the polls, the government of Nicolas Maduro will appoint interim rectors himself.
Most of the anti-Maduro protest among students
By targeting the universities, the Chavista regime is attacking one of the last bastions of its adversaries head on. Over the past ten years, the main protest movements have their origins in the student population . In twenty years of chavism, the ruling ideology had so far failed to make universities its political spearhead.
Tyranny wants to destroy all these institutions from within. It creates struggles between teachers, students, staff and power workers within universities. This is not just an attempt to distract Venezuelans with a theme that has always been tricky, namely that of universities. But it is above all a way of showing that the government still has the capacity to act.
Gisela Kozak, former professor of literature at the Central University of Venezuela 28/08/2019 - by Stefanie Schüler Listen
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