Caracas Chronicles

• Opposition candidate Freddy Superlano won the election in Barinas, but chavismo wouldn’t recognize his victory. 
  • Superlano reported that Sergio Garrido (Acción Democrática) would be the next candidate for the election on January 9th, 2022. 
  • Garrido had been proclaimed for his post on the Barinas Legislative Council by the National Electoral Council (CNE) and hadn’t been barred from running.
  • Superlano denounced the regime’s actions through the Comptroller’s Office against the MUD’s potential candidates Aurora Silva de Superlano and Julio César Reyes. “We already won Barinas. The question for the regime is: at what cost did you lose Barinas and want to keep it as your fee?”.
  • He warned the regime is capable of another low blow. 

• Barinas was the state where the CNE took the longest time to count the voting tallies because the results didn’t favor PSUV, after 23 years of the Chávez family rule.
  • Military officers delayed the delivery of voting tallies to Caracas: Adolfo Superlano won with 37.60% versus 37.21% for Argenis Chávez. 
  • The Electoral Chamber of the TSJ, presided by a former CNE board member, ordered holding a new election in Barinas in 2022. 
  • The truth is that the CNE’s system allowed Superlano’s nomination, which makes his disbarment from office after having won an imposition of the TSJ and an arbitrary measure by the regime to steal a victory. 

The CNE established the following requirement to be considered for running for governor: having lived in the state for at least three years and chavismo has disrespected the rule several times. Jorge Arreaza doesn’t live in Barinas and votes in Caracas… but he was Hugo Chávez’s son-in-law, so the CNE system allows him to run for governor of that state. 

• A deputy of Maduros National Assembly, Diva Guzmán, highlighted that the residence issue doesn’t matter in Arreaza’s case: “I don’t think that’s important, considering he’s a national leader. While the base recognizes him, that’s not a lamination,” she said. jo.
• The prêt-à-porter opposition nominated Claudio Fermín as a candidate for Barinas governor. They also tried the CNE’s “solid” system, which didn’t accept the nomination at first but did so after a couple of tweets and messages. 
• The National Academy of Medicine called for strengthening measures to guarantee the timely discovery of the presence of the omicron variant of the virus. 
• Dr. Julio Castro said that it’s statistically likely that omicron will arrive in Venezuela “in the next few weeks,” because there are conditions to favor the spread. He warned that there’s no information on the severity or rate at which omicron can spread, but that vaccines protect people. 
• ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said that the investigation on crimes against humanity doesn’t entail a change of regime, “it simply tries to tackle the impunity and investigate in an independent manner.” The investigation is focused on abuse by state security forces against members of the opposition during protests and in jails since April 2017. 
  • Because of the potential consequences of the investigation, Khan said that “there are no predetermined objectives” and that there aren’t “preconceived results” either. “The work of my office is to follow the evidence, examine what’s the reality, see if crimes in violation of the Roma Statute have been committed. And if crimes have been committed, finding if the evidence reveals who’s responsible.” 
  • Khan expressed his hopes to return to Caracas to “promote interaction” with the authorities. 

• NGO Control Ciudadano registered at least 73 people killed by police and military officers in 13 states during November 2021. GNB and CONAS are involved in 40% of the extrajudicial executions, PNB and regional police forces are involved in 33% of cases. During the third quarter of the year, there were 372 alleged extrajudicial executions in the country. 
• The Crimes Against Humanity Records Network wants to visibilize the victims of crimes in Venezuela who fled the country before they could denounce the acts committed by state officers. They have teams in seven countries and have ties with the OAS expert panel. 
• Movimiento por el Revocatorio spokesperson Nicmer Evans went to the CNE to request opening a recall referendum against Maduro. They demand modifications on the current rules to hold the process because they limit the possibility of a recall referendum with the current rules. 

The economist and founder of the Venezuelan Observatory of Finance Ángel Alvarado said that the price of making a hallaca increased by 42%: “Making an hallaca costs 2.7 dollars today. It was 1.9 dollars last year.” 

• The president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Real Estate assured this is the moment to invest and buy. “It’s not the moment to sell, don’t sacrifice your patrimony because of the political situation,” he said. He added that the sector needs the approval of financial instruments to pay for construction work and increase the value of the secondary market. 
• FARC dissident leader Hernán Darío Velásques, a.k.a. ‘El Paisa’ allegedly died, according to newspaper El Tiempo. It’s not official yet because they haven’t found the body, which is allegedly in Apure, near Arauca and Vichada.
• Alex Saab’s trial won’t start on January 3rd, 2022. The start of the trial will be determined on January, 7th, 2022. It was announced during a hearing led by judge Robert N. Scola.