Daniel Lozano

Updated Sunday, March 17, 2024-18:34

  • Venezuela Chavismo proclaims Maduro as candidate while disqualifying opposition parties and leaders

Nicolás Maduro's enthusiasm overflowed his proclamation ceremony at the Poliedro de Caracas.

The "people's president" sees it so clearly that he converted the famous prediction "up to two thousand always", coined by

Hugo Chávez

, into "get ready because in 2050 this country will continue to be governed by a Chavista."

It matters little that Chavismo has lost popular support (it only maintains around 15% of the polls).

Faced with reality, the ruling party methodically prepares the

presidential elections of July 28

with all the tools at its disposal.

The last chapter of the

fake

elections revolves around the purge of the parties' electoral cards, of such precision that of the thirty groups that can present a candidate for the elections, only two belong to the democratic opposition.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) has sharpened its scythe since Friday, taking 16 cards, although there is not even certainty that the two survivors, the

Democratic Unity

and the social democratic

Un Nuevo Tiempo

, will hold out in the coming days.

A plan executed at the last minute but that is long-standing, because already in Chávez's time the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) shamelessly used

Vladimir Putin

's strategy to disable the political parties it wanted.

Thus the progressive Podemos, the leftist Patria Para Todos, the Christian Democrat Copei, the Marxist Bandera Roja and the main opposition leaders fell one after another: the social democrat Democratic Action, the centrist Primero Justicia y Voluntad Popular, the party of the former political prisoner.

Leopoldo Lopez

.

Even the historic Communist Party was intervened due to the complaints of its leaders about the savage capitalism implemented by Maduro.

The latest to fall into the hands of the supposed electoral referee, chaired by the comptroller who illegally and unconstitutionally disqualified Machado last year, are Convergencia (close to María Corina) and Movimiento Por Venezuela (within the Unitary Platform), in addition to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), Union and Progress, People, Puente and others.

"The Maduro government, through mechanisms such as the verification of its status and the legalization of new organizations, through the CNE, and the intervention of directives by the TSJ, builds a new ecosystem of parties.

In this way it is illegalized and neutralized to a good part of the democratic opposition parties

and other allies or links to the regime are created," electoral expert Jesús Castellanos explained to EL MUNDO.

In the new ecosystem, made up of 34 parties with electoral cards, eleven were intervened by Chavismo and handed over to their allies.

Of the rest, the United Socialist Parties of Venezuela (PSUV) and the groups that will present collaborators or those close to the government stand out, such as the evangelical

Javier Bertucci

(Cambiemos), the former political prisoner

Daniel Ceballos

(Arepa Digital) or

Antonio Ecarri

(Lapiz). , supported by J

osé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

On the contrary, everything was facilitated for the registration of the comedian Benjamín Rausseo, known as El Conde del Guácharo, who will "confront" Maduro at the head of the new CONDE party.

Rausseo dropped out of the opposition primaries when the polls predicted a resounding defeat against Machado.

On the contrary, María Corina's party, Vente Venezuela, has been trying, without success, for certification for more than a decade.