Now it turns out that the primaries are no longer to elect the candidate to face Nicolás Maduro Moros in 2024, but to settle the leadership of the political opposition to the regime, as clearly stated by María Corina Machado (MCM) when she decided to register in this opposition electoral show. And why do I say this? Because Venezuelans, ever since our country used to play the 5 and 6 squares, our people do not like to play the loser, they always play the winner. Hence, if we are guided by the polls and the general electoral perception of the opposition, MCM would be marking the purpose of these opposition primaries, beyond the very reason for which this mechanism was designed by the parties that make up the official opposition of the so-called Unitary Platform.
Everything points out that this is in fact the real dispute between the G4 parties with MCM and the sabotage or implosion of this primary process carried out by this cartel of "opposition" parties, which is materialized in resignations within the National Primary Commission (CNP), the non-registration of candidacies of candidates protected by the regime and conditions for the registration of other lesser candidates. But in reality this is not the important thing.
What is important is that if within the perception of the reality of Venezuelans, the reason why a process of measurement of political support is called for has changed, or the expected result of such reality has been transformed in some way, then how to proceed in order to sell this new product to Venezuelans has also changed. Hence the sovereign confusion that everyone has regarding this process.
Is it that people support MCM because her speech aims at making a real opposition to the regime and their intention to empower her with votes is to lead the destinies of the opposition, or do they support her to measure herself with the regime's candidate? Be careful when deciding, they are two very different things. If it is for the former, it does not matter if the regime disqualifies her to be a presidential candidate, because such condition would only be one more of the arbitrariness committed by a tyranny in office, so it is to be expected that it will decide additional ones -opening a military trial, for example- before allowing her to run as it would be done in a democracy. But if it is for the latter, there is no sense in such an opposition process, if it is not to validate and legitimize an illegitimate regime before the world by means of votes.
Yes, it is true, those primaries should nominally produce an "opposition candidate". But we all know that when the official opposition established this mechanism, they never expected the electoral phenomenon that MCM would later represent, throwing the whole game off balance and trapping them in what they initially wanted, which was nothing else than to decide among themselves the candidate most suitable for the regime and who would accept their fraudulent result without complaining, and not who would fight to defeat them in a presidential election. And that changed the scenario. Now it is about the survival of the official opposition, as we know it, and of all those who claim to represent Venezuelans in dialogues and other moves with the regime.
As you will see, the game of the primaries turned into something completely different from what was initially thought by its creators, and which has important implications in what will happen in Venezuela in the short term. Observed from that perspective, the primaries become a battlefield for the opposition to elucidate who prevails in the eyes of Venezuelans, beyond deciding a candidate, which is already on the back burner.
The CNP, as an instrument of the politicians of the Unitary Platform, will not allow its mission to change according to the wishes of its creators, so they will be capable of breaking under the pressure of the regime to proclaim a candidate exempted from disqualifications. And that will be their worst mistake before Venezuelans, thus marking the beginning of their definitive disappearance, by going against the general opposition decision of the country.
The regime seems to be trapped. If it does not succeed in getting the official opposition to "self-suicide" by annulling the primaries because "technically and logistically they are impossible to carry out" as suggested by the resigned vice-president of the NPC, it will then have to decide to eliminate them by judicial means, as already planned, bearing the international political costs that this would entail. But if such judicial decision is qualified, regulating the profile of who may be elected in the opposition primaries, then both, official opposition and regime, would be well served. Would the NPC acclaim MCM as the winning candidate of the primaries in spite of a judicial decision ordering that the disqualified may not be registered before the CNE of the regime? I do not believe that the conditions of the coexistence they have would allow them to do so.
In a scenario where the important thing is not the candidate against the regime, but the candidate with the highest opposition vote, the problem is reduced to the fact that this count of the opposition population inside and outside the country is carried out in an effective and legitimate manner, in spite of all the problems. No candidate who knows is lost in this scenario will be interested in the primaries taking place.
On the other hand, it is convenient for the regime that the primaries take place, as long as it is not MCM who is acclaimed as the opposition candidate. It will not matter to them if she wins, but only if she is not the one officially competing against them in 2024. And she will not care if she wins and is not allowed to be the candidate against the regime because the simple fact of having won the process makes her the undisputed leader of the opposition, which would give her the capacity to immediately start the crusade to achieve it over her detractors.
Then, the key to all this transformation is that the opposition finally manages to carry out a citizen consultation process with concrete results, no longer a primary -which has a different connotation-, to select who should lead the destiny of the Venezuelan opposition. And once selected, proceed to decide whether to go to an election or not with the regime, or to enter into a continuous and persistent process of civil resistance to truly make their lives impossible until they leave. For those of us who do not believe in elections with a tyrant counting the votes, we opt for the latter, because whether we want it or not, this is what we will finally have...
Caracas, August 4, 2023
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
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