As expected, the Chavista regime prevented the registration of the candidacy of Corina Yoris, designated as a unitary candidate to replace María Corina Machado, who was banned by the regime to pave the re-election of Nicolás Maduro in the July 28 elections.
The measure triggered a wave of international condemnations that for the first time included Brazil, a serious blow for Caracas.
The regime reacted by extending the system for a few hours and
allowing the alternative registration of the journalist from the newspaper El Nacional, Edmundo González Urrutia,
a former diplomat, but with no political career beyond his activity as an analyst.
Omar Barboza, executive secretary of the Platform, the favorite according to polls to end 25 years of Chavismo control, had indicated that since last Thursday, when candidate registration opened, “they have not allowed us to access the application system.” .
The deadline ended on March 25 at midnight.
The torrent of repudiations, which in addition to Brazil included the other Colombian ally, forced the process to be postponed.
But the bans were not lifted and the candidate chosen by Corina Machado was not allowed.
The opposition alliance that contains the leader's strength, said that the nomination of journalist González Urrutia
is a tool to reserve the space for the candidacy that
, as of Monday, can be replaced, as long as it does not have any administrative sanction or impediment. that contemplates justice aligned with the regime.
The main background of this conflict arose after noon, when the Itamaraty Palace, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry,
reproached in harsh terms the Chavista operations against the opposition
that prevent "the normalization of political life and the strengthening of democracy in Venezuela."
“Based on the information available, it is noted that the candidate nominated by the Unitary Platform (Corina Yoris), against whom there were no judicial decisions, was prevented from registering,
which is not compatible with the Barbados agreements.
To date, the impediment has not been the subject of any official explanation,” says Lula's Foreign Ministry.
The reference is to the pacts between Chavismo and the opposition in which Brazil, the EU and the US also intervened for a democratic opening with free elections, the release of political prisoners and the lifting of bans.
Edmundo González Urrutia, the candidate that the opposition managed to register.
Since Lula came to power, Brazil has had a complacent attitude towards the Venezuelan regime, denying allegations of abuses against Maduro whom he welcomed as a peer in Brasilia.
But that attitude has cost the Brazilian markets prestige among his voters
, mostly middle class in the center.
This year, in October, there are key municipal elections in Brazil where the ruling party needs a resounding victory to build alliances with a view to the 2026 presidential elections.
As anticipated in a column in the newspaper
Estadao de San Pablo
, Lula's government “is irritated” by the Chavista position that ignored the Barbados agreement, relentlessly increasing the arrest and persecution of the opposition leadership and leaders of human rights organizations. , and only allowed the candidacies of leaders who do not pose a danger to the continuity of Maduro.
Among them is the governor of the state of Zulia, Manuel Rosales, who Corina Machado considers to be playing at being an opponent.
Regional tensions
The tension with Brazil threatens to worsen.
According to sources cited by that newspaper,
Lula is considering publicly criticizing Maduro
, which would constitute an unprecedented gesture that would increase the isolation of the Chavista regime.
The matter was discussed in the last hours by the president, his advisor for International Affairs, Celso Amorim, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mauro Vieira.
This decision is supported by the loss of popularity that has just been confirmed by three surveys, despite the good results of the economy.
There is no longer political or diplomatic space to relativize Maduro's “abuses,” a government source told Estadao.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado.
AP Photo
Lula has a history of relativizing the Venezuelan dictatorship, the newspaper recalls, which is what his voters bill him for.
At the beginning of March, when asked about the veto of María Corina's participation in the electoral dispute, the president compared the episode
with the ban imposed on him to be a resident candidate in 2018
.
“They prevented me from running for election in 2018. Crying, I named another candidate and he ran for election,” he stated at the time.
Last year, he received Maduro with the pomp of a head of state in Brasilia, during a meeting of South American leaders, which was harshly criticized by center-left and center-right governments in the region, such as Chile and Uruguay.
According to analysts, the vulnerability of the regime, which has not managed to consolidate its support base, forced it to
imitate the model of Daniel Ortega's Nicaraguan dictatorship, which struck down the entire opposition,
even putting the applicants in jail.
Caracas is moving in this direction at the concrete risk that next April the US will reinstate the economic sanctions that it had lifted in October in favor of the Barbados agreement.
These penalties were imposed after the fraud scandal in the 2018 elections in which the Chavista leader managed to be re-elected.
In that election, its main candidate was precisely Rosales, hence the distance of the opposition alliance with that nomination.
Meanwhile, Corina Machado warned this Tuesday that she will continue campaigning for the presidential elections, although
without explaining how she will do so
.
The regime uses a gaseous assassination attempt as a pretext to arrest the former deputy's main collaborators and it is not ruled out that she may also end up detained.
Source: AP, AFP and Clarín
P.B.