In Venezuela, Chavista deputies are the first to be vaccinated and celebrate it on social networks

Ludmila Vinogradoff

02/24/2021 10:02 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 02/24/2021 10:02 AM

With little or no red faces, the Chavista deputies in Venezuela were the first to be vaccinated with the doses of the Russian

Sputnik V,

contrary to international recommendations that indicate that the first in line should be others.

Happy, the legislators celebrated the vaccination on social media, causing outrage among Venezuelans.

The first batch of 100,000 doses of the Russian drug, which is only enough to immunize 50,000 people with its two applications, arrived last week and began to be distributed three days ago.

This amount

does not cover

even 10% of the health personnel and represents only 0.5% of the total population, according to the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

In the distribution of the

few vaccines available

, the privilege of belonging to the Chavista nomenclature prevailed over the norms of international health organizations, which prioritize the elderly, health personnel and high-risk patients.

A doctor shows her vaccination card in the state of Miranda.

Photo: EFE

Deputy Alfonso Campos Jessurun had no qualms about publishing his credential on social networks certifying that he had received the first dose of the Russian vaccine, but later

deleted the message.

“Today I received my first dose of the Gam-Covid-Vac or Sputnik V Vaccine, believing that it will reach the last Venezuelan.

We continue to advance in the fight to obtain #ElCambio for our country, ”said the Venezuelan deputy.

Campos is a member of the El Cambio party and is one of the

24 “opposition” deputies

who participated in the legislative elections of December 6, convened by Maduro.

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Vaccination in the world

Total doses of vaccines administered per 100 people

Tap to explore the data

Source:

OWID

Infographic:

Clarín

These elections were rejected for being considered fraudulent by the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, and by a large part of the international community.

Other deputies such as

Anyelith Tamayo and Rubén Limas

also recognized through social networks that they had been vaccinated.

In the list of 277 deputies, it is not ruled out that Diosdado Cabello, vice president of the ruling Psuv party, and the board of directors made up of Jorge Rodríguez, Iris Varela, Didalco Bolívar and Cilia Flores, Maduro's wife, have been vaccinated.

Maduro during a press conference in Miraflores.

Photo: AFP

Maduro himself had announced it last week: “The vaccination plan

includes authorities

who, because of their work, justify their street activity, their special protection for the State to continue its march.

Likewise, the deputies will be vaccinated in this first stage ”.

The remaining 99.5% of the Venezuelan population has been left unprotected against the coronavirus without being certain when they will receive the vaccine.

Only a minority of 0.5% of Chavistas have had the privilege of being vaccinated, so the overwhelming majority have expressed their outrage over social networks.

Vaccine by votes

It is not the first time that the vaccine has entered the corridors of the little transparent Chavista administration.

Facing the mid-year elections for governors and mayors, the ruling party's electoral slogan seems to be "vaccines for votes", with the president himself announcing on the radio at the beginning of February that the first 100,000 doses would go in part to the militants of the We Are Venezuela Movement.

Vial with the Russian vaccine.

Photo: AFP

The Movement We Are Venezuela (MVS) party, with a socialist and anti-imperialist tendency

, was created by Maduro

in June 2017 and legalized before the National Electoral Council (CNE) in January 2018.

The political discrimination of immunization, announced by Maduro, anticipates that they will use it to get "votes for the vaccine", ahead of the regional elections of governors and mayors scheduled for mid-year to perhaps favor his son

Nicolasito

, who is candidate for governor of Vargas (the coast of Caracas).

The strategy is not new.

This same coercive mechanism of "he who does not vote does not eat" was applied by Chavismo in the legislative elections of last December 6.

Caracas, special

ap