Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) leader Neirlay Andrade told Green Left that by refusing to publish results from the July 28 presidential election, the Nicolás Maduro government “is crossing a line of no return and rapidly imposing a reactionary regime.”
She added that her party — which was stripped of its electoral registration and denied the right to contest the election — is in no doubt that the consolidation of the government’s “authoritarian turn … will result in the destruction of what little remains of working people’s political and democratic freedoms”.
Months after the election, the National Electoral Council (CNE) continues to defy the law and an August 22 Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) Electoral Chamber ruling by not publishing election results.
Given conflicting claims over who won — the CNE declared Maduro victorious, but the right-wing opposition claims it has evidence to the contrary — verification of who won requires publication of the results.
Yet, on November 4, the TSJ ruled as inadmissible an appeal lodged by left-wing and revolutionary groups in the Democratic Popular Front (FDP), asking it to request the CNE do just that.
Four days later, the FDP presented another document to the TSJ seeking clarification whether “it is [still] legal and constitutional to exercise one’s rights through [state] institutions” or if its ruling indicated that “any action aimed at pointing out non-compliance with the law or court rulings referring to requesting electoral results would be considered reckless”.
The FDP also raised concerns regarding the TSJ’s decision to punish the lawyer who presented the appeal with a fine and suspension from professional duties: “What is the criterion from now on … according to which any lawyer can be suspended from practising law for exercising a constitutional right?
“Who will want to defend political and social causes such as this one from now on, if they might receive such punishment?”
These concerns were shared by the Citizens’ Platform in Defence of the Constitution, another left-wing coalition that involves several former government ministers and officials.
In a November 8 statement it said: “With this absurd and unconstitutional decision by the TSJ, a very serious step has been taken towards the annihilation of the constitutional right of all Venezuelans to appeal the decisions of the judiciary and other branches of government, and to in any way demand the fulfilment of our rights enshrined in our constitution.”
Green Left’s Federico Fuentes spoke with Andrade, who is a PCV Political Bureau member and editor of its newspaper, Tribuna Popular, to find out more about her party’s views on the situation.
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Why was the FDP formed?
The FDP emerged following the presidential elections due to the political crisis that erupted after the CNE presented its first electoral bulletin, which was full of legal and mathematical inconsistencies. This alerted the population to the possibility of electoral fraud.
The first element to cast doubt on the announced results was that the CNE’s bulletin did not come from the central vote tally room.
Second, CNE rector Elvis Amoroso claimed the announced result represented an “irreversible tendency”, when the difference was just 704,114 votes with more than 2 million still to count.
Doubts regarding transparency grew further when the CNE hastily proclaimed Maduro the winner, without publishing the second bulletin with votes broken down by voting centres and booths — as required by the law and customary after Venezuelan elections.
Venezuela has an electronic voting system. At the end of election day, the voting machines print a tally sheet with the votes cast at each polling booth that is signed by CNE officials and party scrutineers. Copies are given to scrutineers from the political parties participating in the election.
This ensures that the information handled by CNE and each political party is the same, thereby guaranteeing the process is transparent.
The campaign command for [right-wing opposition candidate] Edmundo González has published results based on tally sheets collected by its scrutineers from more than 70% of the 30,000 polling centres across the country. According to these, González defeated Maduro by a considerable margin.
Without saying for certain that the results presented by the main opposition force in the country are correct — though they do coincide with the high level of rejection towards the anti-worker and anti-people Maduro government that has been expressed by the Venezuelan people — the fact is that the failure to publish results broken down by voting centres and booths is unprecedented in the past 25 years of Venezuelan elections.
Within this complex context, various political parties, trade unions and human rights organisations, as well as intellectuals and high-profile personalities, decided to unite in a platform for struggle — the FDP — to recuperate our political, social and economic rights enshrined in the Constitution.
What has the FDP done to date?
In its first public appearance, the FDP called on the CNE to publish the results broken down booth by booth and to open the ballot boxes so that each vote could be counted under the supervision of a citizen’s audit.
Three months after the elections, we filed a constitutional appeal asking the TSJ to order the CNE to comply with its legal obligations. Our case was dismissed and our lawyer, activist María Alejandra Díaz, was fined and temporarily suspended from professional practice.
By doing so, the PSUV [United Socialist Party of Venezuela] government has ensured that the TSJ Electoral Chamber — which it controls — has usurped the sovereignty that resides, in a non-transferable manner, with the Venezuelan people.
A court ruling cannot trump people’s votes. The ruling elite knows this. That is why they have accompanied their ruse with an unprecedented wave of repression against poor and working-class sectors.
Temporary enforced disappearances; detentions of minors, women and persons with disabilities; arbitrary and humiliating street searches; illegal house raids and theft of belongings; extortion and other operations by parapolice groups in complicity with state forces; as well as the cancellation of passports, have been the order of the day.
This policy of terror has been fuelled by psychological and propaganda operations aimed not only at neutralising popular protests, but imposing on society the idea that defending popular sovereignty, the constitution or the rule of law is the equivalent of being a fascist.
How do you characterise the legitimacy of the incoming Maduro government?
Maduro intends to be re-elected on the basis of results written on the back of a napkin, without the slightest care for how or any regard for the mechanisms and procedures enshrined in the constitution. Everyone knows what happened on July 28.
Such is the disarray among the government and PSUV elites that they have set in motion a dangerous conspiracy against the will of the people.
Are you not concerned with what a far-right government could mean for left-wing militants if the results show González won?
The PSUV government leadership has become authoritarian. There are dramatic examples of this: the judicial assault on the PCV is one. So too, the persecution and jailing of workers and trade union leaders who have fought to defend wages and labour rights.
What has happened since the July 28 presidential elections confirms to us that the Maduro government is crossing a line of no return and rapidly imposing a reactionary regime.
We have no doubt that the consolidation of this authoritarian turn by the Maduro/PSUV regime will result in the destruction of what little remains of working people’s political and democratic freedoms, as well as negatively impact trade union freedoms to wage class struggle against the bosses.
Our demand is clear: respect for popular sovereignty, democratic freedoms and other constitutional guarantees. The consolidation of an authoritarian regime at the service of domestic and foreign capital is never a better option.
How can left-wing activists outside Venezuela best help left-wing activists inside Venezuela?
We urge you not to turn your back on the Venezuelan working class and people. A campaign is underway to legitimise a clearly flawed process on the basis of the PSUV government’s oft-repeated discourse that it is waging a supposed “anti-imperialist struggle”.
However, the actions of this corrupt leadership confirm its servile disposition to guaranteeing the profits of local capitalists and transnational capital, while unloading the full weight of the crisis and consequences of the criminal [United States-led] sanctions onto the shoulders of workers.
There needs to be an international campaign to demand the CNE publish the results broken down by voting centres and booths. Also, there needs to be a comprehensive audit and the opening of 100% of the ballot boxes in order to count the ballot papers.
Transparency is the only way to ensure this conflict does not worsen.
International solidarity with the hundreds of detainees — especially those adolescents and minors still in jail — who are being illegally prosecuted for alleged hate crimes and terrorism is also important.
We cannot allow the powers that be and the operators of imperialism and capital to condemn the legitimate struggle of the Venezuelan people to failure.
[Abridged and edited from the original interview published at links.org.au.]