Elections at Central University of Venezuela Are a Trial Run for Opposition Primaries

By Misión Verdad – May 29, 2023

Those of us who witnessed the elections at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV)—Tyrians and Trojans—can conclude that they were a microcosm of the hypothetical elections, projected on a national scale, which will be organized by the opposition. It is the most obvious conclusion, the one that has won over most of the pundits in Venezuela’s digital media and opinion ecosystem.

The similarity between the logical disasters of, one the one hand, the electoral organization in the supposed “house that overcomes the shadows,” the entrenchment of the still-in-office university authorities headed by Cecilia García Arocha and, on the other hand, the harsh reality surrounding the preparation of the opposition primaries to elect a single candidate for the upcoming presidential elections, is a publicly known and notorious fact.

For a long time the various opposition factions have stood naked before public opinion and the political arena, with their innumerable attempts to gain access to state power. However, they continue using methods such as the democratic–institutional mechanisms in the preparation of primaries, even with all their mediocrity, contradictions, and power struggles, which continue to be exhibited to this day.

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The same thing happened at the UCV, according to a report commented on by the opposition journalist Eugenio Martínez, an expert on elections. The official cause of the suspension of the ucevista elections was the loss of information by the electoral registry due to basic errors by the electoral commission of the university. In addition, the material was affected by a flood which occurred the previous night.

La suspensión de las elecciones de la UCV tiene finalmente una causa oficial y es mucho más compleja y grave que la afectación del material electoral por una inundación en la noche previa al 26 de mayo
— Eugenio G. Martínez (@puzkas) May 29, 2023

What is remarkable about the matter is that these votes were carried out by authorities who call themselves the intelligentsia of the country, the “illustrated league” of Venezuela, which has lived at the UCV for generations under a government structure that only benefits themselves. All the while, student leaders from opposition parties —we saw this in various audiovisual records on social media networks— are calling for the dean to step down.

In this way, also, those “decent and thinking” people are left naked, giving off an appearance that they do not want to display at the national level, but this debacle was inevitable as an almost natural reflection of the decline of the sector, which is part of a larger one within the anti-Chavista spectrum. Many of the technicians, intellectuals, and politicians of the opposition come from this matrix, and feed directly into it. The members of the National Primary Commission are part of this world, and that is why they owe something to it.

They are the same ones who try to justify manual voting as a technical innovation in electoral institutions. The results, on a small scale are visible with the votes of the UCV. Let’s see if —if it happens— the primaries will replicate the announced failure, which will certainly happen if that opposition sector does not allow the National Electoral Council (CNE) to provide logistic support and materials.

The debacle of the UCV elections elevates the CNE as the only entity capable of organizing processes like this in the country, especially if we take into account that they want to publicize the electoral process of a self-managed event, knowing in advance what was going to happen. They were trapped in this same arrogance when they said that the “university elections would serve as an example for the country” and, at the end of the day, they were not even held. The electoral postponement scenario was replicated, as also occurred with the date of the primaries.

Rector Cecilia García Arocha: The Shadow that Lashes the Central University of Venezuela (UCV)

Thus, the prerogatives of María Corina Machado, Delsa Solórzano, and Andrés Velásquez, who advocate for an independent consultation by the Democratic Unitary Platform, with manual counting, are undermining the only reliable way to achieve primaries in the country. Those who propose that the CNE should not participate in the internal opposition electoral movement have a clear example of their results in the process carried out at the university campus in Caracas and, therefore, it is a technical proposal with serious political consequences for their platforms, especially because there are other leaders and parties that do agree with the assistance of the Venezuelan Electoral authority in the primaries.

All this goes to show that “civil society” and “the educated and thinking class” are an overvalued farce in the Venezuelan political scene, and that they are capable of self-sabotaging simply to undermine elections.

Cecilia García Arocha, por abolengo, aspiraciones de aristócrata y conducta política, es el perfecto alterego de María Corina Machado.
Y eventos como los de hoy en la UCV son la proyección a futuro de lo que sería Venezuela si ella gobernara: el país como su propiedad privada.
— William Serafino (@williamserafino) May 27, 2023

The similarities between the UCV elections and the opposition are several, and this is not simply a coincidence: the academic authorities themselves are worthy representatives of a political class that for decades has revolved around decadence, excess, and the frustrated desire for power.

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/KW/SL