Caracas Chronicles

• Breaking a basic recommendation for every negotiation process, the speaker of Maduro’s National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez mocked the privacy and discretion required for the negotiations and gave his own version of the meeting last week. 
  • He celebrated that the document recognized the government and mentioned the opposition as a unitary platform, and warned that all negotiations should be carried out publicly. 
  • He assured that Maduro requested them “not to attend hidden meetings.”
  • He insisted that everyone agrees that the sanctions should be lifted and that, even though the U.S. government has repeated over and over that this possibility is subject to chavismo complying with the agreements reached in the negotiation process. 

• Román Duque Corredor, former Magistrate cleared up some of the things Jorge Rodríguez said and highlighted how meaningful it was that Maduro’s regime accepted to discuss its own governability by signing the agreement memo. 
  • In addition, the signatories are categorized as “the parties”, to allow equality between both sides. “It’s mutual political recognition (…) It never was judicial recognition to any kind of authority,” he explained. 
  • He added that the approved negotiation agenda shows that there hasn’t been a free election in Venezuela, which is the “origin of legitimate public power”.

• Chavismo said that the memo of the agreement was published in the Official Gazette N° 6.637, after the Assembly approved it. 
• Delcy Rodríguez claimed that Russian foreign minister Serguéi Lavrov expressed his country’s disposition “to contribute to an inclusive solution to the Venezuelan conflict” and that Lavrov reaffirmed the “will to strengthen strategic relations.” 
• Maduro asked Jorge Rodríguez to bring the fundamental proposal of signing a document to control Monómeros to the next round of negotiations in Mexico. He also said that Rodríguez will discuss lifting sanctions for the economic recovery of the country. Those are all topics to be debated, not conditions. 

Roberto Patiño, the founder of Alimenta la Solidaridad (ALS), announced he’s stepping down from his position at this NGO to go into politics. 

• If the opposition is running for the Miranda governorship in November, pre-candidates are going to need more than surveys. TalCual said that recent results are different and contradictory. 
  • According to Delphos 65.4% would vote for Carlos Ocariz in the primaries and 34.6% would vote for David Uzcátegui, but Datincorp says the contrary. 

• In Nueva Esparta, the opposition primaries will only be held in two out of 11 municipalities. Arismendi and Díaz, said the organizing commission doesn’t have technical assistance from the National Electoral Council. They’ll hold the primaries on August 22nd. 
• Monitor Salud delivered over 400 PPE kits to workers of 15 healthcare centers in Caracas. Union leader Mauro Zambrano said that “guaranteeing these supplies is the duty of the State, however, we can see how its presence is almost nonexistent in our hospitals.” 
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Italian citizen Gianluca Rampolla as the new resident UN coordinator in Venezuela. 
• OCHA assured on Wednesday that 274.9 million dollars were assigned to Venezuela in the first semester of 2021. “We’ll keep working to obtain the $708.1 million we require,” said OCHA. 
  • They said that the humanitarian response has a network of over 131 national and international NGOs that have reached 2.1 million people with some sort of assistance in many municipalities. 
  • Miguel Pizarro assured that the gap between the financing and the humanitarian needs is still considerable. 

• The UN Secretary-General reiterated his support for the dialogue process, the efforts of Norway, and the disposition of Mexico, the Netherlands and Russia. 
• The UK chargé d’affaires Becks Buckingham said she met with Juan Guaidó “reaffirming the support of the United Kingdom to achieve a democratic solution to the Venezuelan crisis through free and fair elections.”