Caracas Chronicles

• On Tuesday, Maduro’s regime used the power of the State to influence the electoral arena. There are six candidates for the Barinas election on January 9th, 2022. 
  • Sergio Garrido, MUD candidate. This deputy to the Regional Legislative Council is a member of AD. He assures that he’ll give PSUV their second defeat. 
  • Jorge Arreaza, for PSUV. He wasn’t born in Barinas and hasn’t even lived there. He has been appointed to many positions in the government because he’s Hugo Chávez’s son-in-law. 
  • Claudio Fermín, for the AD faction controlled by Bernabé Gutiérrez after the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ). 
  • Adolfo Superlano, with MIN-Unidad, a party created to take votes from MUD, with the same graphic identity and keywords. He took the request to the TSJ to void the election in Barinas, the action that led to Freddy Superlano being barred from running. They’re not related. 
  • Social activist Pedro Díaz, for Movimiento Ecológico.
  • Aldemaro Sanoja, for Partido Comunista de Venezuela. He was barred from running on Tuesday by the Comptroller’s Office. 
• CNE board member Roberto Picón said all the events in Barinas were a conspiracy to delegitimize the will of voters. He said that people outside the CNE conspired to block receiving the voting tallies from the most remote towns in Barinas, which gave them enough time to bar Superlano. They kidnapped the functions of the Electoral Branch and annulled the result to call for other elections, and they made nominations of new candidates a lot harder with the “express” procedures to bar candidates on Sunday and Monday. 
• The president of CNE municipal junta in the Jesús María Semprún municipality in Zulia, Eraima Varela, said the election and results on November 21st were manipulated and were plagued with irregularities, and that the Plan República didn’t allow her to do her work. 
• The UN General Assembly approved Maduro’s envoys’ credentials. Some countries said that doesn’t mean they’re being recognized. 
• Former candidate Henri Falcón went to the TSJ to demand another election in Lara. 
• Monitor Salud said that at least 5.801 healthcare workers got COVID-19 last year. 

The Venezuelan Observatory of Prisons said that three inmates escaped a prison in Táchira while they were finding wood because the prison hasn’t had cooking gas in months. 

• The Venezuelan Observatory of Finance said that there was a 6% inflation rate in November. The international reserves dropped by $171 million for the BCV intervening in the market and offering dollars. The currency is being overvalued in real terms, and that’s why the dollar has lost purchasing power. 
• Maduro’s regime estimates that oil revenue will finance 61% of the national budget next year, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. They expect to get $8,200 million next year while the budget is 13,560 million dollars. 
• Henry Castellanos Garzón, a.k.a. “Romaña” was killed in the same operation as Hernán Darío Velásquez, a.ka. “El Paisa”. They died in Apure when these FARC dissidents were circulating near the border. 

After Julio Borges’s resignation, ambassadors of the caretaker government met with Guaidó. They expressed their support and Isadora Zubillaga said that ambassadors are developing new plans of action. 

• The U.S. government plans to keep supporting the democratic forces in Venezuela and the route proposed by a large group of the opposition. 
• “Even though there’s no war in Venezuela, people suffer as if they had one because they’re victims of a cruel dictatorship,” said Enes Kanter, NBA player and human rights activist.