A room at the Central University of Venezuela, in Caracas.MIGUEL GUTIÉRREZ (EFE)
The elections to choose the rector and the rest of the academic authorities of the Central University of Venezuela, the oldest and most important in the country, – the first to be organized in the institution after 15 years of judicial struggles in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Chavista regime – were surprisingly suspended today in full celebration of the votes. whose call was massively heeded, after technical defects that delayed to the extreme the optical reading of voting records and produced an excessive delay in the installation of the tables.
The measure was announced by the president of the Electoral Commission, Professor Carlos Martín, who said that the elections were postponed to this June 9. At noon, the Electoral Commission had had a lockdown with the seven candidates for rector, pondering the cost of postponing the appointment. Martin made the announcement of the postponement shortly after holding a press conference in which he justified the delays and offered assurances that the elections would not be suspended.
This consultation was agreed between the university authorities and the high government after the prolonged legal vacuum existing since 2008, and the continuous impediments of Chavista legality for it to be carried out. Chavismo finally allowed the UCV to organize things on its own, placing some conditions on the table of conversations, such as organizing an appointment in which the entire population that lives in the university would go to vote, and not only the academic plant. The candidate Miguel Alfonzo, doctor, of Together for Heritage, heads the best-known plate of the Chavistas to the appointment. The UCV will also renew vice-rectors, secretaries, deans and vice-deans, including school directorates. On behalf of the Government, the efforts were made by the brothers Jorge and Delcy Rodríguez.
A group of angry students broke into the offices where the Electoral Commission operated in the afternoon, at the Faculty of Medicine of the University City of Caracas, and demanded the resignation of the current rector, Cecilia García Arocha, present in the room, accused by them of fomenting the delay, and of the members of the Commission. After presenting unconvincing explanations, Martin and the rest of the Commission submitted their resignation.
From two o'clock in the afternoon, students protested the delay in the installation of the tables, shouting "we want to vote" among the long lines of stranded voters. Many of them showed up very early in the morning and left after three and four hours lost. Impatience became general by noon in all the faculties, crowded with frustrated voters.
"Until the University Council does not give answers about the reasons for the suspension of the consultation we are not going to move from here. They have to give us explanations for this suspension, we want to vote," exclaimed angry student leader Jesús Mendoza, president of the Federation of University Centers, before an exalted crowd of students who applauded him.
Enrique López Loyo, one of the candidates in the race, denounced in the morning that there had been a deliberate destruction of electoral material in order to delay the process. Some speculated that it was surreptitious sabotage to force the UCV to seek technical assistance from the ruling National Electoral Council. "This delay is inexplicable after having had so much time to organize this process. All are things that should have been taken care of in advance," said Humberto Rojas, one of the candidates with the most options.
The day before the appointment, the Electoral Commission itself had published on its Twitter account a video in which part of the electoral ballots affected by a leak in a wall product of the rains that have fallen in these days in the city is seen. The exhibition of electoral material in that flooded space was manifest. The tweet announced that the minutes had "been saved" amid drips. The humidity would have affected the operation of the optical readers that the ballots need.
The elections at the UCV, the most important autonomous university in Venezuela, a relevant space of the country's civil universe, had generated a genuine interest in Venezuelan society and in the entire environment of the academic community of this institution of 302 years of existence, estimated at about 250,000 people.
The University City of Caracas was visited very early by professors, students, workers and administrative staff, encouraged by these winds of democracy that posed the call in the midst of the harsh siege of the Government of these years. In this pulse, traditionally, the opposition currents have been a clear majority against Chavismo in the consultations.
The UCV, a dying space in these years, afflicted by the diaspora of staff, precarious salaries and the dwindling, purging for years an uninterrupted sequence of tensions with Chavismo, presented these days a renewed aspect, certain festive airs, a campaign that occupied an important part of the existing academic muscle, several stimulating and respectful debates between the candidates and the promise of a massive participation.
Despite the general irritation, the university leadership is confident that the willingness to vote in the next consultation on June 9 will be maintained. Humberto Rojas, physicist; Víctor Rago, anthropologist and linguist, and Amalio Belmonte, sociologist, look like the candidates with the greatest possibilities.
"I have no responsibility for what has happened here," said the outgoing rector, Cecilia García Arocha, after the student rants. "I'm leaving on July 14, but because I want to leave, not because they tell me I have to leave. Insults are part of the trade. I feel shame for what has happened, but I am not to blame."
Follow all the international information on Facebook and Twitter, or in our weekly newsletter.