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20.05.2018 - Venezuelans to head to the Polls to Elect New President on Sunday
Venezuelans to Head to the Polls to Elect New President on Sunday
Venezuelans will head to the polls Sunday to elect a new president amid the ongoing social and political crisis in the country.
Five candidates are competing for victory in the election: incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, editor at the Aporrea media outlet Reinaldo Quijada, conservative preacher Luis Ratti, opposition leader Henri Falcon and Evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci.
The polling stations will open at 06:00 a.m. local time (10:00 GMT) and close at 06:00 p.m.
Venezuela has an automated vote-counting system. A voter presents his or her ID to an election commission’s chairperson and approaches a voting machine behind a curtain. After scanning the voter’s fingerprints, the machine displays the list of candidates.
The presidential elections were initially set to take place in December, then rescheduled for April 22, and delayed again to May.
Venezuela has been facing mass protests since last spring. The protests were sparked by the country's top court's decision to restrict the legislative powers of the parliament as well as the election to the National Constituent Assembly initiated by Maduro with the intention of changing the constitution.
19.05.2018 - Western Media Writing Off Venezuela's Elections - Unless Their Candidate Wins
Western Media Writing Off Venezuela’s Elections - Unless Their Candidate Wins
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is up for re-election on Sunday, when he will try to defeat the growing opposition movement to his government. Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear spoke with activist and writer Lucas Koerner, who writes for VenezuelaAnalysis.com, to get an idea of what to expect May 20.
Maduro's primary challenger is Henri Falcon, a former governor of Lara state and a former member of Maduro's own United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Falcon founded the Progressive Advance party, politically allied to the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party, in 2012. The only other challenger is Javier Bertucci, running as an independent. He's a politically conservative evangelical preacher, according to the UK Independent.
Despite the election and Venezuela's democracy, host Brian Becker noted that the New York Times headline on the event heavily implied that Maduro is a dictator and that the election threatens to topple him.
"If Venezuela were a dictatorship, it wouldn't be having a presidential election," Koerner pointed out.
"Nicolas Maduro was actually elected to a six-year term on April 14, 2013, which, you know, expires on January 10, 2019, so he'll be serving out his constitutional mandate, which is conveniently forgotten by the mainstream media," Koerner noted. Maduro, who was vice president from 2012 to 2013, became president when Hugo Chavez died of cancer complications March 5, 2013. The Venezuelan constitution mandated that an election be held within 30 days, and Maduro narrowly won with 50.6 percent of the vote, just 1.5 percent difference from his rival, Henrique Capriles of MUD.
"The mainstream media just parrots the opposition line, they wanna have their cake and eat it, too. They want to delegitimize the election, but at the same time they want to paint Henri Falcon, who is the opposition frontrunner, as this champion of democracy, so in case he wins, they'll recognize the election," Koerner theorized.
With two of its national leaders, Leopoldo Lopez and Capriles, unable to run in the election for various reasons, MUD chose to boycott the elections, which were originally scheduled for April 22, calling them "fraudulent," Reuters reported. Falcon's party broke their alliance with MUD in order to enter the election.
"Henri Falcon is seeking to promote a high turnout for this election to try and defeat Maduro, but the reality is the opposition has shot itself in the foot, because all the main opposition parties have called for a boycott and are actively attempting to undermine this candidate."
Koerner noted that opposition supporters are "militantly against this candidate."
The Miami-Herald recently put Falcon on blast, calling him a "traitor to Venezuela" on May 2, heavily insinuating that Falcon is an illegitimate opposition leader whose basis of support is "Wall Street bond holders" that seek a cooperative government "who they hope would guarantee future payments of Venezuelan bonds." The Herald noted that "Falcon's top economic adviser is Harvard-graduated economist Francisco Rodriguez, chief economist of Torino Capital, a New York financial firm focused on Latin American emerging markets."
However, the question on everybody's minds is: Who is going to win?
"I think Maduro is going to win," Koerner said, "but the question is, by how much, how many votes is he going to get, because it's not just that the opposition is boycotting, it's also the fact that the opposition is divided… the fact is that Falcon is not a nationally renowned, nationally known figure. He's very uncharismatic, he just lost his reelection bid in October by a landslide, so he's not viewed as someone — and you know, he's being actively delegitimized by the opposition."
"But the question is Maduro, how many votes is he able to mobilize? He definitely has a floor of, say, 6, 6.5 million votes, I would say at least, probably 7. But he's promising 11, he was trying to get over 50 percent because that's what he needs to really ensure his legitimacy. That would be a massive blow to the United States and the opposition if he were to win that, but it remains to be seen whether he can mobilize those numbers."
Venezuelans to Head to the Polls to Elect New President on Sunday
Venezuelans will head to the polls Sunday to elect a new president amid the ongoing social and political crisis in the country.
Five candidates are competing for victory in the election: incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, editor at the Aporrea media outlet Reinaldo Quijada, conservative preacher Luis Ratti, opposition leader Henri Falcon and Evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci.
The polling stations will open at 06:00 a.m. local time (10:00 GMT) and close at 06:00 p.m.
Venezuela has an automated vote-counting system. A voter presents his or her ID to an election commission’s chairperson and approaches a voting machine behind a curtain. After scanning the voter’s fingerprints, the machine displays the list of candidates.
The presidential elections were initially set to take place in December, then rescheduled for April 22, and delayed again to May.
Venezuela has been facing mass protests since last spring. The protests were sparked by the country's top court's decision to restrict the legislative powers of the parliament as well as the election to the National Constituent Assembly initiated by Maduro with the intention of changing the constitution.
19.05.2018 - Western Media Writing Off Venezuela's Elections - Unless Their Candidate Wins
Western Media Writing Off Venezuela’s Elections - Unless Their Candidate Wins
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is up for re-election on Sunday, when he will try to defeat the growing opposition movement to his government. Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear spoke with activist and writer Lucas Koerner, who writes for VenezuelaAnalysis.com, to get an idea of what to expect May 20.
Maduro's primary challenger is Henri Falcon, a former governor of Lara state and a former member of Maduro's own United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Falcon founded the Progressive Advance party, politically allied to the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) party, in 2012. The only other challenger is Javier Bertucci, running as an independent. He's a politically conservative evangelical preacher, according to the UK Independent.
Despite the election and Venezuela's democracy, host Brian Becker noted that the New York Times headline on the event heavily implied that Maduro is a dictator and that the election threatens to topple him.
"If Venezuela were a dictatorship, it wouldn't be having a presidential election," Koerner pointed out.
"Nicolas Maduro was actually elected to a six-year term on April 14, 2013, which, you know, expires on January 10, 2019, so he'll be serving out his constitutional mandate, which is conveniently forgotten by the mainstream media," Koerner noted. Maduro, who was vice president from 2012 to 2013, became president when Hugo Chavez died of cancer complications March 5, 2013. The Venezuelan constitution mandated that an election be held within 30 days, and Maduro narrowly won with 50.6 percent of the vote, just 1.5 percent difference from his rival, Henrique Capriles of MUD.
"The mainstream media just parrots the opposition line, they wanna have their cake and eat it, too. They want to delegitimize the election, but at the same time they want to paint Henri Falcon, who is the opposition frontrunner, as this champion of democracy, so in case he wins, they'll recognize the election," Koerner theorized.
With two of its national leaders, Leopoldo Lopez and Capriles, unable to run in the election for various reasons, MUD chose to boycott the elections, which were originally scheduled for April 22, calling them "fraudulent," Reuters reported. Falcon's party broke their alliance with MUD in order to enter the election.
"Henri Falcon is seeking to promote a high turnout for this election to try and defeat Maduro, but the reality is the opposition has shot itself in the foot, because all the main opposition parties have called for a boycott and are actively attempting to undermine this candidate."
Koerner noted that opposition supporters are "militantly against this candidate."
The Miami-Herald recently put Falcon on blast, calling him a "traitor to Venezuela" on May 2, heavily insinuating that Falcon is an illegitimate opposition leader whose basis of support is "Wall Street bond holders" that seek a cooperative government "who they hope would guarantee future payments of Venezuelan bonds." The Herald noted that "Falcon's top economic adviser is Harvard-graduated economist Francisco Rodriguez, chief economist of Torino Capital, a New York financial firm focused on Latin American emerging markets."
However, the question on everybody's minds is: Who is going to win?
"I think Maduro is going to win," Koerner said, "but the question is, by how much, how many votes is he going to get, because it's not just that the opposition is boycotting, it's also the fact that the opposition is divided… the fact is that Falcon is not a nationally renowned, nationally known figure. He's very uncharismatic, he just lost his reelection bid in October by a landslide, so he's not viewed as someone — and you know, he's being actively delegitimized by the opposition."
"But the question is Maduro, how many votes is he able to mobilize? He definitely has a floor of, say, 6, 6.5 million votes, I would say at least, probably 7. But he's promising 11, he was trying to get over 50 percent because that's what he needs to really ensure his legitimacy. That would be a massive blow to the United States and the opposition if he were to win that, but it remains to be seen whether he can mobilize those numbers."
