Venezuela blocks Yoris' candidacy
March 26, 2024
The outlook for Venezuela’s July presidential elections is murky, after the country’s largest opposition coalition, the Unitary Platform, was prevented by government authorities from registering its candidate, Corina Yoris, by yesterday’s deadline. (Efecto Cocuyo)
“Yoris was picked as a stand-in because she had no obvious impediments to running but was unable to access the election authority’s computer system or enter the electoral council building to register,” reports the Financial Times.
However, last night electoral authorities said a place-holder spot has been reserved, potentially opening up the possibility of negotiations for another opposition candidate to join the ranks of the dozen people vying for the presidency in elections that are strongly tilted towards the governing PSUV. (Efecto Cocuyo, Geoff Ramsey)
“The last hours of the presidential candidacy registration period were fraught with suspense,” reports El País. The National Electoral Council (CNE) used its automated system “to block and readmit parties at will, citing “technical failures” as part of a political game that seeks to forestall any possibility that Nicolás Maduro, who is rejected by 80% of the population, might lose an election scheduled for July 28.” (See also Efecto Cocuyo.)
It remains to be seen whether the Unitary Platform coalesces around one of the other candidates who were able to register, including Enrique Márquez or Manuel Rosales. Or whether it is able to negotiate a substitute for one of the candidates who were able to register. Venezuela’s electoral system allows parties to substitute their candidates with alternatives.
“Polls show the unpopular Maduro would be trounced by a landslide if Venezuelan voters were given half a chance,” notes te Associated Press.
Rosales’ registration for the Un Nuevo Tiempo party, minutes before the deadline, was questioned by other factions of the opposition, but defended by the party as an effort to stay in the race rather than be locked out. (Efecto Cocuyo and Efecto Cocuyo)
Last week Venezuela expert David Smilde warned of the distinct possibility that Maduro’s government would block opposition candidates at will, calling on Washington to support any candidate who has the potential to unify government opponents. Despite a likely uncompetitive election “it is always worth making an authoritarian government play the election game because it can make mistakes, and a “stunning election” result can generate a cascade of events that leads to a transition in spite of the incumbent government’s efforts,” he wrote in Responsible Statecraft.
In contrast to frustrated efforts to register Yoris, herself a replacement for the opposition favorite María Corina Machado, who has been banned from running, Maduro yesterday walked into the CNE building on a red carpet. “With or without you, we are going to hold elections this July 28,” Maduro told his adversaries yesterday, just as he did in 2018. (El País)
A group of seven Latin American countries, led by Argentina and including Ecuador, Guatemala and Peru, condemned the Maduro government’s blocking of candidates. “This situation . . . raises more questions about the integrity and transparency of the whole electoral process,” a joint statement issued by Argentina’s foreign ministry said.
Brazil
Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro spent two nights at the Hungarian embassy in Brasilia, potentially in order to “leverage his friendship with a fellow far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, into an attempt to evade the Brazilian justice system as he faces criminal investigations at home,” according to a New York Times investigation published yesterday. “The specter of prison time for Mr. Bolsonaro has prompted wide speculation that he might try to flee justice. Two of his sons have applied for Italian passports.”
Following the NYT investigation, Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered Bolsonaro to explain why he spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy, and the Brazilian federal police began investigating whether the February stay violated earlier court orders, reports the New York Times.
Regional Relations
French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the Amazon today, to discuss environmental policies at the start of a three day visit to Brazil. (Reuters)
“The diplomatic crisis that erupted one month ago when Brazil's president likened the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza to the Nazi genocide during World War Two has begun to calm down, Israel's envoy in Brasilia” told Reuters yesterday.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro called on countries to break diplomatic relations with Israel if it does not comply with a Security Council resolution mandating a ceasefire in Gaza during Ramadan, reports El País.
Immigration’s central role in the U.S. presidential campaign gives Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador potential to sway the election. The Biden administration has worked hard to preserve AMLO’s cooperation, even as some officials say he is “an unpredictable partner, who they say isn’t doing enough to consistently control his own southern border or police routes being used by smugglers to bring millions of migrants to the United States,” reports the New York Times.
Haiti
Haiti’s transitional presidential council has not been sworn in yet — delayed by concerns over the security of its members, some of whom say they have been the targets of political attacks and death threats, reports the Associated Press.
The council, which will be tasked with naming a new prime minister, prepare for the arrival of an multinational force and set a path toward elections also faces definitional issues that have delayed its start, reports the Miami Herald, including whether all nine members will be involved in governance discussions or just its seven voting members.
“The representative of the interfaith community is threatening to resign if he isn’t allowed to cast a vote, and the political party Platform Pitit Desalin, led by former senator Jean-Charles Moïse, is facing an internal insurrection over the politician’s decision to join the transition after at first saying he would not,” reports the Miami Herald.
Regional
A Nacla Report reflects on the Latin American far-right phenomenon and “its links with historically rooted social and political processes, such as the nature of democratic restoration, the socioeconomic impacts of neoliberal economics, and the geopolitical challenges posed by “progressivism” and Bolivarianism,” write Ernesto Bohoslavsky and Magdalena Broquetas.
The authors grapple with what to call these political forces, national and regional far-rights and their connection to the international phenomenon, and with “how to understand the link between these new political forces and the various forms of symbolic, physical, and institutional violence they wield.” (Nacla)
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro opposes the drug war paradigm, but a year and a half into his mandate, “Petro’s fiery rhetoric has proven to be more symbolic than effective. While Petro continues to invoke the need to end the war on drugs, his new drug policy now talks of “making modifications” to the current paradigm, while maintaining prohibitionist objectives, such as reducing drug production and demand,” reports the Dial.
Cuba
Blackouts and food shortages in Cuba are reminiscent of “Special Period” hardships, and have brought some Cubans out on the streets in protest, “despite the government’s punishment of previous protests, for which some have received prison sentences of up to 20 years,” reports El País. (See March 18’s post.)
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei’s first three months in power have been characterized by a self-imposed political solitude that puts him on an all-or-nothing track, despite a significant chunk of the political arc that is willing to help him pass reforms that are currently stonewalled in Congress, writes Marcelo García in the Buenos Aires Times.