Caracas Chronicles

• The deadline to make changes in candidacies for the November election expired yesterday. Carlos Ocariz, the candidate for governor of Miranda, said: “I’ve decided to take an important step and work for unity (…) Venezuela demands unity, people demand coherence.” He said this decision made it possible to consolidate unitary candidacies in 17 out of 21 municipalities in Miranda. 

The prêt-à-porter opposition achieved its goal: dividing, distorting and complicating the real opposition’s understanding with the people, while the real opposition couldn’t use this alleged election to its favor for lack of time, resources and planning. The prêt-à-porter opposition is a way of chavismo and they played so the ambush would work. 

• Journalists posted a purchase order by Monómeros to the firm Llorente y Cuenca (LLYC). Leopolodo López’s mother, Antonieta Mendoza, is the vice president of the firm. They paid around 38,000 dollars for a communications consultancy. LLYC said that Antonieta Mendoza wasn’t tied to the project in any capacity. We require more information, but there’s an obvious conflict of interest. Transparent deals are necessary. 
• CNE board member Tania D’Amelio published a list of alleged guarantees for this election, where she combined rights, fallacies and methods in a 14-item list. 
• CNE board member Enrique Márquez said that the process to hand out witnesses’ credentials will be extended till Friday, November 12th. 
• Comptroller Elvis Amoroso said that he created a committee to defend the vote, that will provide legal counsel and receive complaints. Amoroso was sanctioned by the U.S. in November 2017 for being tied to electoral fraud and censoring media outlets. 
• The Foreign Vice-Minister Rander Peña said that they met with representatives of the Bolivian commerce sector and their ambassador,  Sebastián Michel, to evaluate “proposals to improve binational commerce.” 
• Neighbors of the Mario Briceño Iragorry municipality in Aragua, denounced that CLAP delegates demand payments in dollars to “keep services for the community up to date” and they must make the payments to the communal council business bank account. 
• Delsa Solórzano, Andrés Velásquez and other political leaders called to defend the National Assembly elected in 2015, and exhorted parties of the unitary platform to publicly take a stand and share their position on the caretaker government’s continuity. They agree on the caretaker government remaining alive until there are parliamentary elections with guarantees. 
• The hearing of FundaRedes activists Javier Tarazona, Omar de Dios García and Rafael Tarazona was suspended for the tenth time. Tarazona is still in prison. 
• Colombian police detained nine members of a gang that tricked and sexually exploited Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Peruvian women. 
• Jesús Chuo Torrealba questioned the “inability” of opposition leaders for not unifying candidacies that can compete against chavismo. He said there have been “many mistakes that weren’t corrected in time” and said that the “leadership’s mediocrity can’t make us mediocre citizens.” 
• The Spanish Audiencia Nacional authorized the Milan office of the prosecutor to travel to Madrid and interrogate Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal for the alleged financing of Italian party Movimiento 5 Estrellas. The Italian justice system is investigating how the Venezuelan consular delegation in Italy helped in sending 3.5 million euros via diplomatic pouch. 

Alex Saab is allegedly changing lawyers, according to documents reviewed by AP journalist Joshua Goodman. The defense is led by lawyer Neil Schuster now, who has defended Colombian paramilitary leaders and former agents of Hugo Chávez. 

• In an interview with César Miguel Rondón, Goodman said that the investigation on Saab started in 2015, “even though people in Venezuela or the U.S. didn’t know how important Saab was to the government (…) Since 2015, Saab has been a ‘person of interest’ for American authorities,” he said. 
• 13 OAS member states issued a declaration exhorting the regime to restart the Mexico negotiations, demanding the immediate release of political prisoners, freedom of expression and press, reestablishing full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. 
• In the Skating World Cup in Colombia, Venezuelan athletes Daniela Bustamante and Agy Quintero, won silver and bronze, respectively. Venezuelan referee Jesús Valenzuela was nominated by the International Federation of History and Soccer Stats as the best referee of the year.