Tag Archives: Political Tensions

INTERNATIONAL

Controversial Electoral Council Swearing-in Raises Concerns in Venezuela

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“The election of such a professional, balanced, and high-level National Electoral Council (CNE) is good news for Venezuela,” a euphoric Nicolás Maduro stressed to the country after the swearing in of a new electoral referee designed to suit him. next year’s presidential.

The Bolivarian caudillo has imposed one of his closest collaborators, Elvis Amoroso, at the head of the CNE, who, to make matters worse, was in charge of the disqualification of opposition leaders from the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic.

“The disabler who disables the most, a good disabler will be. It is his prize for pleasing the autocracy,” criticized the chavista critic Nicmer Evans.

Thanks to the disqualifications of Amoroso, always at the service of the Miraflores Palace, neither the conservative María Corina Machado, who leads all the polls for the opposition primaries in October, nor the centrist Henrique Capriles can participate in next year’s presidential elections. Amoroso is sanctioned by the United States.

“He is an unconditional and complicit in dirty tasks,” recalled Juan Guaidó, former president in charge also disabled, from exile.

On the bench of substitute magistrates Maduro has another tough Chavista, General Fabio Zavarse, designated by the International Criminal Court for “induction and complicity” in crimes against humanity.

The opposition has not forgotten how Zavarse, who was the general commander of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB), allowed the violent ambush of Chavista paramilitaries against his deputies at the very gates of the CNE.

Along with the controversial Amoroso there will be two other “furious maduristas”, as defined by the opposition leader Luis Florido.

This is Colonel Carlos Quintero, the shadow power of the CNE in recent years, and the until now secretary of the revolutionary legislative body, Rosalba Gil, widow of Darío Vivas, another historic member of the pro-Maduro faction of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela ( PSUV).

It was precisely Cilia Flores, the first revolutionary combatant and wife of Maduro, who was in charge of directing with an iron hand the process that has led to the replacement of the previous CNE by the current one, both under the formula of three revolutionaries for two opponents, these without any ability to prevent revolutionary arbitrariness.

On this occasion, Chavismo has given its approval as magistrates to Aimé Nogal Méndez, close to the opposition party Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT), and Juan Carlos Delpino, who was substitute rector of the CNE in 2020 at the request of the Supreme Court of Justice ( TSJ).

Nogal is identified with the group of Stalin González, a UNT leader who has participated in the negotiations in Mexico, under international supervision, between the government and the democratic opposition..

“The CNE folded to the system will be one of the many barriers that we are going to tear down,” Machado added.. Once again, the CNE fails to comply with the constitutional requirements, which expressly prohibit those elected from being linked to political organizations.

With this coup in the electoral tribunal, the “son of Chávez” was not only seeking maximum fidelity once he has made the decision to remain in power until 2030 at whatever price. In the Miraflores Palace they also tried to impact the opposition with a few weeks to go before the primaries. and he has achieved it.

“This CNE is one more farce of the regime, we reject it. It is the result of the unanimous alliance of the dictatorship and its pseudo-opponents,”

protested Julio Borges, leader of Primero Justicia (PJ), who has lost one of his magistrates and sees how both UNT and Acción Democrática, which make up the G -3 from the opposition, will sit in the electoral body.

From the opposition Unitary Platform, criticism was launched at the two parties for being part of the new CNE behind the back of the National Commission of Primaries.

“What will the new CNE do? Cancel the primaries and organize fraudulent and early mega-elections (presidential and local), “said political analyst Georg Eickhoff.

SPAIN

Political Tensions and Intrigues Surrounding Spanish Congress Formation

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The tension in the block on the right skyrockets. The PP’s decision to leave Vox out of the Congress Table has raised blisters in Abascal’s party, which now leaves free support for Feijóo up in the air in the face of a hypothetical investiture.

The order of the ultra-conservative party further complicates, if possible, the round of consultations between the popular leader and the King and minimizes the chances that he may be commissioned by Felipe VI to try to form a government as the winner of the 23-J elections.

At this moment, Feijóo only has 139 votes in favour, his own plus that of UPN and CC. Sánchez has just signed a majority of 178 deputies, although his partners have also warned that what happened at the Table does not presuppose that they will support an investiture of the socialist candidate.

“We want explanations”, Abascal warned after the constitutive session of the Cortes. “We are somewhat perplexed because it does not seem that preventing the third political force in Spain from staying out of Congress is recovering democratic normality,” he added..

The Vox leader has assured that, at this moment, he cannot answer the question of whether he will continue to support Feijóo without consideration in case he goes to an investiture session, and that he hopes to speak with Genoa in the short term.

Feijóo has been the most affected of the vote this Thursday. The PP has not managed to tie up even the 33 Vox supports for the Presidency of the Chamber. The ultra-conservative party has voted for its own candidate, Ignacio Gil Lázaro, in protest at Genoa’s decision not to cede one of its four positions on the Board to those of Abascal.

This same Wednesday, the leader of the PP boasted of having tied up 172 yeses. But reality has prevailed and has dealt a hard blow to Feijóo, for whom the attempt to force an investiture with his sights set on an electoral repetition is complicated..

The XV legislature has started with an agreement in extremis between Sánchez and the Catalan independence movement, which has allowed the PSOE to save the first match point against the PP and that the socialist Francina Armengol is the one who presides over the Congress with 178 votes in favor against the 139 that the PP candidate, Cuca Gamarra, has achieved, plus the vote in favor of UPN and the Canary Coalition.

Finally, PSOE and Sumar will have the majority in the body that governs the Lower House, since the former Balearic president is the one who breaks the tie between the socialists and their Sumar partners and the popular ones, with four seats each.

The break between PP and Vox has also had consequences for the distribution of the four vice-presidencies. The first is also retained by the PSOE, with Alfonso Rodríguez de Celis at the helm and 113 votes.

The second will be occupied by the popular José Antonio Bermúdez de Castro, who obtained 73 supports in the first vote. Esther Gil (Sumar) breaks the tie with Marta González (PP) in the second vote and takes the third vice presidency, so the PP retains fourth place.

The popular ones consummate, therefore, their decision not to cede one of their positions to Vox, and Ignacio Gil Lázaro loses his seat as fourth vice president of the Table.

The PNV option

The votes made it clear that the possibility of the PNV returning to the body that controls the Lower House did not come to pass. The idea launched by the PP, in an attempt to wrest the majority of the Mesa from socialists and leftists, has been shipwrecked.

Much further has been the possibility launched by the Canary Coalition to give the jeltzales the Presidency of Congress. Aitor Esteban’s party did not publicly pronounce on this possibility, which was contemplated by Sánchez’s investiture partners, but which did not sound good in the PSOE. Finally, the nationalists have come in unity of action with the socialists in this inaugural vote before reopening the melon of the investiture.

The distribution of the secretariats varied with respect to that of the vice-presidencies, since the PSOE agreed with Sumar and the rest of its allies that the first seat will be for Gerardo Pisarello, a member of Yolanda Díaz’s coalition, but coming from the commons of Ada Colau.

Pisarello received 101 votes to the 77 of the socialist Isaura Leal, who will be second secretary after leaving the leadership of the socialist group. His experience and knowledge of the Chamber is behind the election of the PSOE.

The third and fourth secretariats will belong to the popular Guillermo Mariscal and Carmen Navarro, who was already on the Board after replacing Adolfo Súarez Illana when he left politics. The PP did not want to leave a position to Vox here either, which has re-introduced Ignacio Gil Lázaro for the third consecutive vote.

The control body of the Lower House returns to that imperfect bipartisanship that has, on one side, the PSOE and Sumar, and, on the other, the PP alone after its clash with Vox. At the end of the voting, the newly elected Board has taken its seats and the new president, Francina Armengol, has launched the process of compliance with the position of the 350 deputies.