The National Primary Commission of the Venezuelan opposition holds a press conference. Photo: Twitter/@cnprimariave.
The National Primary Commission of the Venezuelan opposition announced that it will ask for technical assistance from the National Electoral Council (CNE) for the internal presidential primaries of the opposition.
The commission announced through a statement issued on Friday, June 2 that it has agreed to request a meeting of the Joint Technical Commission.
The purpose of the meeting is to ratify and formalize what has been discussed so far in the Joint Technical Commission regarding safeguards and guarantees for the opposition’s presidential primaries. Among the issues to be evaluated is the use of fingerprint scanners installed in the electronic voting machines.
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“It was approved to request a meeting of the Joint Technical Commission from the CNE for ratifying and formalizing what has been discussed so far within the framework of said commission in relation to various aspects and guarantees for the primaries, including issues related to the protection of the identities of the voters,” the statement declared. “If these specifications are confirmed, technical assistance will be requested for the organization of the primary elections on October 22, 2023.”
Comunicado
Comisión Nacional de Primaria sobre la asistencia técnica del CNE: pic.twitter.com/2eg1L6N9oX
— Comisión Nacional de Primaria VE (@cnprimariave) June 3, 2023
It remains to be seen how the opposition’s pre-candidates will react to the National Primary Commission’s recent announcement, since some of the candidates were against the CNE’s participation in the process.
One of them is the candidate for the Vente Venezuela party, María Corina Machado, who has repeatedly expressed her opposition to the use of fingerprint scanners.
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“The primaries cannot be the process in which you have to abide by the conditions of the regime,” she said last month. “Do you think that people want to vote with fingerprint scanners and with the CNE counting the votes? No.”
The fingerprint scanners have been used in Venezuela for more than 10 years in all legitimate elections held in the country, elections in which candidates from the opposition have been elected.
However, the opposition has been against the use of the electronic voting system and the associated fingerprint scanners in all sorts of elections in recent years. The CNE was not allowed to provide technical assistance to the council elections that were scheduled to be held at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) last week, in spite of the disorganization, logistical problems, and high budget necessities of the voting process that the UCV continues to use. Ironically, the election finally ended up being suspended due to alleged logistical issues.
Some analysts presume what happened in the UCV elections will ensue once again in the opposition primary elections if the CNE is not allowed to provide technical support.
(RedRadioVE) by Ana Perdigón
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/KZ/BLA
