Nicolás Maduro calls regional elections and clashes with the agreement of Juan Guaidó
The revolution has only taken a few hours to raise the first obstacle against the negotiation proposed by the majority opposition. The new National Electoral Council (CNE), under the control of Nicolás Maduro, has set a date for the local and regional elections in Venezuela: November 21. A strategy that collides head-on with the national salvation agreement, which contemplates the need to start with an electoral schedule that also includes presidential and parliamentary elections.
“All my support as head of state for the unanimous call made by the rectors of the CNE for mega-elections,” cried the “son of Chávez”, who has also shown himself willing to talk with “all the opposition”, albeit with reluctance habitual.
Precisely the most important opposition parties are participating since this Friday in Bogotá in a conclave to unify positions with a view to a possible negotiation with the government. Several of its main leaders have traveled to the neighboring country, in addition to those who connect via zoom.
Popular Will (VP), the party of Juan Guaidó and the former political prisoner, Leopoldo López; Primero Justicia (PJ, center-right), which includes Ambassador Tomás Guanipa and Deputy José Guerra, as well as its coordinator, Foreign Minister Julio Borges; the social democrat Acción Democrática (AD) and the social Christian Un Nuevo Tiempo.
A more urgent unification of positions than ever that must resolve the strategies that each one of them has drawn up around the agreement and the local elections called by the new electoral body, which is made up of three staunch Chavismo militants and two opponents close to the thesis of the opponent Henrique Capriles. Chavismo had advanced negotiations with these minority opposition sectors, led by the former presidential candidate and by former deputy Stalin González, who intend to support local and regional leaders who want to run for election. Neither of them participates in the opposition conclave in Colombia.
“We have to show the real options for our people to decide their future. We will not stop at the rhetoric. Although it may not seem like it, in these times is where the community has the most opportunities to row without the political confrontation that has divided them,” Capriles reacted after the events that have given a 180-degree turn to current Venezuelan politics..
In the interview granted to EL MUNDO hours after presenting the national salvation agreement to the country, Juan Guaidó announced that it is first necessary to reach a complete election schedule. “These regional and local elections do not change the political reality of Venezuela or solve the underlying crisis that we Venezuelans are going through,” explained the president in charge.
The US and Spain support the negotiation attempt
The formation of a new CNE, received by the international community as a “first step”, has been followed by a series of announcements, ranging from the revision of the current electoral registry to the first draft of international observation, defined as an “oversight ” by the president of the electoral body, former minister Pedro Calzadilla.
Both Maduro and his “left hand”, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the Chavista Parliament that emerged from electoral fraud last year, have opened the door to holding negotiations between both parties with presidential mediation.. Norway would remain at the forefront of these efforts, backed by a club of friends that includes the European Union and Spain, and which is intended to include the United States.
Striking were the statements by General Vladimir Padrino López, Minister of Defense and strongman of the army, a transcendental piece among the generalate that keeps Maduro at the helm of the country.. “We celebrate the opening of new paths for peace,” said Padrino.