VenEconomy: Venezuela's MUD Must Keep a Watchful Eye on PSUV Primary Elections 
 From the Editors of VenEconomy
Latin American Herald Tribune
June 29, 2015

The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) held primaries on Sunday to select half of its candidates in 87 districts of 22 states plus the Capital District. This way, militants of the PSUV went to the ballots as they attended an election process that lasted for more than 15 hours, and had 5,613 polling stations spread over 3,987 voting centers.

According to information from Diosdado Cabello, Vice-President of the PSUV and President of the Parliament, 3,162,400 people went to the ballots; that is to say, 16.4% of the 19,260,775 registered voters in the Permanent Electoral Register – a slightly lower rate than the 17.1% achieved by the Democratic Unity (MUD) opposition party during their primaries in 2010.

The political actors, both from the Government and the opposition, can read into these results and jump to their own conclusions.

The PSUV should take note of the poor turnout (slightly above 30%, according to Cabello, and around 5% according to independent analysts.)

These results were in spite of the illegal use of public resources and blatant propaganda, at the expense of the nearly empty public coffers and the misuse of the State's media network, which is unfortunately the only conduit of information available for the majority of the people living in popular sectors and the interior of the country with no access to alternative media or the Internet.

In spite of the mounting pressures on public employees and the control exercised over the beneficiaries of the social programs dubbed as "missions," as well as the demagogic distribution of a portion of public revenues.

In spite of the abuses and violations of the Constitution and electoral laws, as demonstrated when President Nicolás Maduro, before the closing of the polling stations, threatened to know who had voted and who did not, as well as with the extension of the closing time of polling stations on three occasions, so these could remain open until 10:00 p.m. and this way have reluctant voters picked up at their homes by supporters of the regime.

It should be noted that these meager results also evidenced a growing rift in the PSUV. For starters, the 1,162 candidates who participated were mostly imposed by the Miraflores presidential palace, and not necessarily representatives of natural leadership in their respective regions. In addition, on this occasion, the ruling party suffered a major split with Marea Socialista, a local left-wing political organization, breaking away from it.

The MUD should keep a watchful eye on the guidelines set out by the Government with the consent of the National Electoral Council (CNE) during these primaries, which always become "the norm" despite their flagrant illegality.

Extending the closing time of polling stations to make things work for the ruling party.

The elimination of the physical voting centers' registries makes it impossible to perform an audit of the voting results.

Another factor to be looked closely is the illegal coercion of broad sectors of the electorate, with which the PSUV intends to tilt the balance in its favor.

In addition to the frequent abuse of putting the entire governmental apparatus at the service of a political bias with total impunity.

These elections served as trial and error to fine-tune the details for the parliamentary elections to be held on December 6 of this year.

Until then there will be all kinds of machinations, with the intention to hinder the participation of the opposition. One fine example is a change of rule announced by the CNE, according to which both parties shall have 40% and 60% of their candidates of each gender in order to ensure "gender equality." The MUD has only 13 female candidates so far, which means the consensus achieved must be revised in order to fill the quotas.

Lastly, it should be noted that the Government's strategy is one of discouraging people from going out and cast their votes in December. Causing a low voter participation is the key that explains the behavior of the Government.

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