Journalists Luz Mely Reyes and Boris Muñoz: “80% demand a change,” the opposition did its job, “the international community must pressure”
By Carlos F. Chamorro (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – In Venezuela, after a wave of repression against the leaders of the Vente Venezuela Party led by Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the opposition primary with more than 90% of the vote, the National Electoral Council (CNE) controlled by Nicolas Maduro vetoed Machado’s registration as the opposition candidate.
Then on March 22, with the consensus of the Unity Platform of political parties, Maria Corina Machado announced the designation of Corina Yoris, a university professor, philosopher, 80 years old, as the opposition candidate, replacing Machado.
This weekend, the Maduro regime also vetoed the registration of Yoris by de facto means, without providing any justification other than the fear of competing with a candidate who has the support of 80% of the electorate, endorsed by Machado against Maduro.
The deadline for Corina Yoris’s registration expires on March 25. To evaluate the latest news from Venezuela amid uncertainty, we spoke in Esta Semana and CONFIDENCIAL with journalists Luz Mely Reyes, director of the digital media Efecto Cocuyo, and with the columnist Boris Muñoz, columnist for the newspaper El País, and former Opinion director of The New York Times in Spanish.
We asked them about the electoral scenarios in Venezuela, after the nomination of Corina Yoris, and whether Maduro and his Venezuelan Socialist Party will allow a competitive election on July 28, in which it would clearly lose power, or if it will annul political competition as Daniel Ortega did in Nicaragua in 2021.
“They have said that they will not give up power,” Reyes recalled, “it is an election without guarantees, of course, we already know that it is not competitive.” However, with a repetition of Maduro, with the traps they lay, “people already know that an economic improvement in the country is unsustainable with Maduro in power.”
For his part, Muñoz appealed to the support of the international community: “the lifting of sanctions —I am not a lawyer of sanctions—, but I believe that stabilizing this Government is a bad recipe and the problems it generates at the regional level are so great that it is necessary to press for a change. This is the moment to do it, the window is three months, not much further.”
The candidate registration deadline
There are only 24 hours left for the deadline for the registration of presidential candidates. And although last Friday Maria Corina Machado, who was vetoed by the regime, and the opposition, nominated academic Corina Yoris as the candidate, the Electoral Council has not allowed her to register. What is happening in Maduro’s party? Is there a decision to veto Corina Yoris or to disqualify the party in which she is registering?
Luz Mely Reyes: It is not known exactly, because that is a black box, what may be happening in [the governing] Chavismo. But what is presumed, from the facts, is that there is an intention for Professor Corina Yoris, who was proposed by Maria Corina Machado and accepted by the groups that are in the Unity Platform —which brings together a majority of opposition political parties in Venezuela—, it seems that the decision of the National Electoral Council is not to allow her to run.
Until March 22, Corina Yoris was unknown in the Venezuelan political world. Why is her nomination causing this political tremor in Chavismo? Would it be a veto not only against her, but against the opposition she is representing?
Boris Muñoz: The Government makes a very simple calculation by not allowing Yoris to register, and that is that she starts with a very concrete advantage: 2.6 million votes that will be transferred to her from Maria Corina Machado. And there is no doubt that her candidacy would have great support and would represent a greater challenge for Maduro than he has received in his eleven years in power.
I doubt they will let her register in the remaining time. And I also understand —it was commented on Saturday by a person close to the opposition— that the Government is evaluating names of candidates that it would allow to register. So, let’s see what happens in the coming hours that are so crucial, which probably is being decided at this moment.
I presume that the Unity Platform has to weave very finely, at this moment, in its support, to whom it will be able to give it because it has to ensure that that person is loyal to the platform and loyal to democracy. There is a group of candidates that have been allowed to register, who are named as opposition without having demonstrated a consistent activity with the most belligerent opposition that has led the struggle of the last 25 years.
And those candidates who registered, who are not Nicolas Maduro, and are not properly opposition leaders, do they reflect a division in the opposition, or are they regime collaborators?
Luz Mely Reyes: These people who have registered do not belong to the parties of the Unity Platform. Supposedly they represented some different option, an opposition that self-defines as less radical. However, they failed to reach any agreement to have a single candidacy among them, which indicates that, as a group, they do not act in a unified manner and, moreover, the interest is probably not even to win an election because they know they do not have the numbers, but rather there may be other interests. They are those who have bought into the theory of conceding rights and lowering the bar of negotiations with the Government, since they were allowed to run.
Boris Muñoz: The expectation of Venezuelans at this moment —and I believe that explains the success of María Corina Machado as an opposition candidate— is change. None of these other candidates represents a change, not radical, but a possible change. They are not viable to win a presidency. That is the dilemma facing the Unity Platform, which represents the possibility of change, even beyond the slogan “until the end” that has really motivated a lot of political mobilization. The possibility of a change that could be, even, in positive terms for the ruling coalition, that could open a negotiation and the path to reconciliation with Chavismo.
Eventually, if the scenario is given, and one of these candidates receives the support of the Unity Platform, is still a very distant assumption as they are not credi
