Caracas Chronicles

How did it happen?: 

• • The voting tallies took two days to get from Barinas to Caracas. The National Electoral Council ordered taking the tallies to Caracas to count them and finally give the results. But despite the delays, only three tallies arrived in Caracas instead of four. 
  • On Monday morning, MUD candidate Freddy Superlano said that the CNE should proclaim him the winner because even with the tallies, chavismo doesn’t have the number to win. 
  • In the afternoon, the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered the CNE to suspend the proceedings tied with the recount and proclamation of the Barinas governor, after a request for a precautionary measure was issued by Adolfo Superlano on Friday, for the alleged violation of the participation and voting rights in Barinas. 
  • The ruling says that Freddy Superlano is “barred” from holding public office but it doesn’t say that there was a political agreement arranged in Mexico in the negotiation. One more arbitrary measure by chavismo. 
  • No institution took responsibility for the role the FANB played and without the officers kidnapping voting tallies, the impugnment case wouldn’t have been taken to the TSJ. 
  • The CNE might call on the Barinas Legislative Council to appoint an interim governor. Since Freddy Superlano’s rival is Hugo Chávez’s brother, it’s likely that the Electoral Chamber will solve this dispute shortly and the TSJ would once again violate the will of the people in favor of PSUV. 
  • Diosdado Cabello warned on Sunday that he thinks that the mission’s results were foreseeable and that Barinas was a bastion, and that “wherever we have to challenge the results, we will.” 
  • Juan Guaidó wrote: “As the EU electoral observer mission warned in their preliminary report: there’s no Rule of Law or branch independence. The regime is exposed as what it is: a common dictatorship that violates the will of the people who expressed themselves”.
  • Henrique Capriles considered changing the TSJ is one of the most urgent topics to discuss, “they only manage to make things worse and they keep mocking barinenses.”
  • Freddy Guevara expressed his support for Freddy Superlano and said that the TSJ intervention is “the most important proof that he won and that electoral conditions don’t refer to technical issues only, but democracy and the Rule of Law.”

• Maduro said that vaccine candidate Abdala will be used in January as the vaccine for booster shots. Abdala isn’t a vaccine for lack of scientific evidence proving its efficacy. 

90% of Venezuelans assure they have some problem with the water supply, said Raúl Córdoba, CEDICE’s Public Utilities Monitor coordinator. 

• The Venezuelan Movement for a Recall Referendum (MOVER) announced that they’re presenting a series of proposals to the CNE to establish new rules that would allow for activating a recall referendum against Nicolás Maduro in 2022.
• CONATEL ordered shutting down Monumental 94.1 FM, in the Zamora municipality. They said it’s because they lack permits, but in reality, it’s owned by Nelson García, mayor-elect, who won 56.50% of the votes against chavista candidate Ramón Márquez (29.27%).
• Two new scandals surrounding Monómeros were revealed this weekend. Colombia’s El Tiempo investigated how manager Guillermo Rodríguez Laprea established agreements with powerful Venezuelans using companies Kapocar, Insumos del Pacífico 195 and LionStreet Ventures Corp.
• Armando.Info published a piece on engineer Jorge Pacheco, close to Leopoldo López and Voluntad Popular. He became an advisor and contractor for Monómeros when the caretaker government started managing it. Documents from Freja Group and Freja Colombia tie the scandal to him and not to a Danish company with the same name. 
• The 6ª Book Fair of Western Caracas started yesterday, where there will be over 60 free activities for all age groups. Poet Yolanda Pantin will be awarded the UCAB Order.