Jorge Arreaza, former foreign minister, former minister and candidate for governor in Barinas, Venezuela, this Sunday during election day.LEONARDO FERNANDEZ VILORIA (REUTERS)
More than 25,000 Venezuelan soldiers have deployed this Sunday in the Barinas State, stronghold of the family of the late President Hugo Chávez, to guard the elections in which the next governor will be elected.
It is the repetition of the elections, held in November and won by the opposition.
The Supreme Court annulled the victory of Freddy Superlano, the opposition candidate who for the first time in 20 years conquered the Chávez fiefdom.
Unlike the regional elections on November 21, in this new election the polling stations have been installed on time and participation has increased, according to the opposition Democratic Unity Table at a press conference. The MUD supports the candidate Sergio Garrido, registered to attend the disqualification of Superlano after his victory. On this occasion, the Chavista candidate is Jorge Arreaza, a former foreign minister and minister, very close to Maduro and who was married to one of Hugo Chávez's daughters.
The number of voters who had voted by noon this Sunday doubled that registered at the same time in the original elections.
“Participation is reaching 40% in the middle of the day, doubling the level of last November.
This speaks of a civic disposition of the Barineses to enforce their will, it is a bill for the voters who felt cheated when Freddy Superlano was not proclaimed as governor, ”said Simón Martínez, from the opposition campaign command.
The new vote in this plains region 500 kilometers from Caracas has become a national matter.
Despite the militarized environment and the government's waste of resources to win at all costs in this second opportunity, the opposition has challenged Chavismo.
The one who was defeated in November was Argenis Chávez, brother of the former president and part of the dynasty that has ruled this state for two decades.
Chávez was running for re-election and resigned after the Supreme Court suspended the counting of the votes and ordered a repeat of the elections.
He also declined to be a candidate.
The Government of Nicolás Maduro placed on him all the responsibilities of a defeat that has a national reading, as it expresses the level of rejection that exists in Venezuela of Chavismo and Maduro, with less than 15% approval and an increasingly reduced number of votes .
For Barinas, as a political symbol, Chavismo has decided to jettison the small advances made during the past year in negotiations with the opposition to find a way out of the long Venezuelan political crisis.
In the November elections, the presence of an electoral observation mission from the European Union was achieved, something that had not happened for 15 years, although it was expelled after presenting a preliminary report of the electoral process in which they denounced several irregularities. This was one of the concessions given by Maduro for his adversaries to agree to run again in elections, after remaining abstained as a boycott in recent years.
For the opposition, the election in Barinas has also become a common objective, amid divergences in the platform of support for the leadership of Juan Guaidó.
National leaders of different opposition parties have joined the campaign of Barroso, the candidate in Barinas, who claims to have deployed representatives to all the tables and to be prepared to emerge victorious in this process despite adverse conditions.
The polling stations close at six in the afternoon and the results could be known late at night, as well as the effects of the Chavismo maneuver to repeat the elections to win whatever it takes.
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