Briefing

Insisting on an "Elections" Delay

Maduro announces a plan for gas supply; the basic food basket is way beyond minimum wage; protests, repression, COVID-19 cases and deaths continue

Naky Soto
Is Henrique Capriles beating a dead horse?

Photo: Rompeviento TV

  • On Wednesday, opposition leader Henrique Capriles demanded that the “elections” be pushed because there are no conditions for fairness. He called on the EU as a guarantor of legitimacy of his request to postpone, in order to obtain guarantees and with them, serious observation missions. He didn’t explicitly say that he was retiring from the process. 
  • In another useless journey to talk about the “Sovereign AgroPetro” plan and his contribution to filling up spaces on state media with propaganda, Nicolás announced that starting Monday, October 5th, a new plan for gas supply will begin, determined by the last number on the license plate. Tareck El Aissami will explain the rationing plan. Hopefully he’ll mention something about the fact provided by workers of El Palito refinery to El Pitazo: gas doesn’t reach 90 octanes and it won’t satisfy national demand. On the contrary, Nicolás said: “Venezuela is already producing all it needs for internal use, two refineries have restarted despite brutal attacks,” without mentioning failures. He was bold enough to accuse how chaotic the U.S. presidential debate was and said that the debate on October, 15th, will have Venezuela as a main topic because “it’s an imperial obsession.”
  • The CNE president imposed by the Supreme Tribunal (TSJ), Indira Alfonzo, met with representatives from the parties that will run in the “election” and informed them audits on the automated voting system. Journalist Eugenio Martínez has insisted on the fact that, even though there are only 68 days to go, the details of the voting system are unknown. “In reality, we don’t know anything, we’ve only seen diagrams of the machines,” he wrote yesterday. 
  • Bernabé Gutiérrez, who benefited from the TSJ imposition on opposition party Acción Democrática, rejected the sanctions that include him and assured that postponing the elections would mean giving Nicolás a carte blanche that would allow him to postpone unfavorable elections in the future (?!). He talked exactly like a PSUV member and that’s why they aired the clip on state media. Dante Rivas, the authority imposed by PSUV in Nueva Esparta state, assured that protests affect normal life and the operativity of public utilities, even though the protests are precisely because public utilities don’t work. 
  • NGO Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social and NGO Provea issued a statement to denounce the advance of a repression policy by the state against citizens who protest. These NGOs denounce that repressive policies don’t solve the chaos of public utilities that have deteriorated the quality of life: instead of solving the claims, the state represses and “increases suffering.” On Wednesday, more police cars and officers from the Guárico Police, GNB, PNB and SEBIN arrived to Santa María de Ipire, in Guárico state, after the protests over the weeked. It’s the town where Reinaldo Armas is from and it has a population of 13,000 people.
  • On Wednesday, Victor Rivero, 20 years old, was murdered in a protest for food in Cariaco, Sucre state, on Venezuela’s eastern coast. 
  • UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet met with Nicolás and Jorge Arreaza, who called the event “fruitful,” because they allegedly advanced in the cooperation with the office in Geneva and the team here. The team knows more details about the violations of human rights in Venezuela. 
  • Last night, Diosdado Cabello threatened members of opposition parties Voluntad Popular and Primero Justicia, blaming them for the protests. He said that he had just received “information about Operation Tun Tun,” which implies a threat with arbitrary raids. 
  • Nicolás’s Communications minister, Fredy Ñañez, reported on Wednesday 759 new cases and seven deaths of COVID-19, which brings the total to 75,122 cases and 628 deaths that they’ve admitted to. 
  • The balance for Wednesday by the Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social states that peaceful protests continue in towns, 33 protests in 17 states: “Citizens demanding better living conditions, with public utilities and protesting the gas shortage.” 
  • The basic food basket calculated by Cendas increased 20% in August, it costs 8.28 million bolivars now. Buying 60 products of the basket cost 91.83 million bolivars, an increase of 24% compared to July and increased by 1,607.5 % compared to July 2019.
  • On October 26th, José Gregorio Hernández will be exhumed, 156 years after he was born. The bodies of beati are exhumed to check their state and extract relics, if there were any. 
  • The U.S. offered 10 million dollars for information that leads to the arrest of former Electricity Minister Luis Motta Domínguez and his advisor Eustoquio Lugo Gómez. They’ve been accused of conspiracy for money laundering.  According to documents, they would have issued contracts with three companies in Florida for over 60 million dollars with Corpoelec in exchange for bribes. Jorge Arreaza, as usual, rejected the action. 
  • Member countries of the UNHRC expressed their rejection of the intimidation and retaliation campaign that Nicolás’s regime started against organizations and victims that gave information to the UN about human rights violations since 2014. Secretary General António Guterres presented a report to the Council with evidence about attacks perpetrated by agents of the regime from June 2019 and April 2020, against organizations like Provea. 
  • The diplomatic mission sent by the EU to Caracas awaits a response by the regime of delaying the “elections” for six months. If the “election” is held as the regime plans, the EU won’t recognize it: “The policy of the EU in regards to Venezuela hasn’t changed: currently, there are no conditions for a free, fair, democratic electoral process.” Many more conditions are needed in addition to time to solve the electoral chaos. 
  • The Costa Rican government reported closing their embassy and consulate in Venezuela, and said that the decision was made because they’re trying to cut public spending. Costa Rican citizens in Venezuela will receive attention for their cases emailing [email protected]. 
Briefing

Naky Soto

Naky gets called Naibet at home and at the bank. She coordinates training programs for an NGO. She collects moments and turns them into words. She has more stories than freckles.

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