Caracas, (EFE) support of the National Electoral Council (CNE) as an “essential” element to achieve this objective.
The promise of the Primary Commission, the entity that manages these elections, is to create a regulation that regulates the participation of the Venezuelan diaspora, estimated at 7.1 million people, according to the Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants from Venezuela (R4V ), mechanism of the United Nations Agency for Refugees (Acnur) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
However, Ignacio Ávalos, director of the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory (OEV), explained to EFE that it is a complex mission, considering the number of potential voters outside the Electoral Registry (RE) and the lack of an agreement on participation in the CNE primaries.
“In general, the ideal would be support from the CNE, because this is not about putting a box and starting to put votes there (…) then, the technical and logistical support of the CNE would be very important, I would even dare to say which is essential,” he said.
The figures of the elections in Venezuela
According to the last cut of the RE, corresponding to September 30, 2022, in Venezuela there are 21,094,629 citizens of legal age registered to vote, of which only 107,878 are registered in diplomatic representations of the Caribbean nation abroad.
Those registered to vote in foreign territory represent barely 2.25% of the 4.8 million that, according to calculations offered to EFE by José Enrique Delgado, coordinator of the NGO Súmate, would be the number of migrants of legal age eligible to participate in national elections.
In this regard, Ávalos, from the OEV, specified that there are more than 4 million people who are able to vote and who are not registered due to a lack of Venezuelan consulates in some countries, or due to “difficulties” in reaching these diplomatic or complete the documentation required for registration, as many traveled without passports and irregularly.
“Of those 7 million Venezuelans (outside the country), around 4 million are adults capable of voting, that is, they are a population, which, again, is not a minor fact, it is an important number,” he remarked.
Agreements in the opposition primaries
Although for Ávalos the main challenge facing the primaries is to achieve internal agreements regarding the forms of execution and participation in these elections, he assured that the commission in charge also faces the logistical challenge of organizing a process of this type inside and outside the country, in case it is decided to dispense with the CNE platform.
In his opinion, making it possible for foreigners to vote in primary elections is not easy, but involves “complicated logistics”, whose technical and operational instruments are in the hands of the Electoral Power, which many opponents mistrust.
He added that, in order to achieve the vote of the migrants, it is necessary, first, an agreement between the opponents regarding the participation of the migrants and the acceptance or not of the technical support of the CNE and, later, that the RE be opened and expanded. outside the borders and the registration is facilitated, even of those who are in an irregular condition in the receiving country, in addition to being done automatically to speed up the process.
All this, continues Ávalos, requires agreements with the Electoral Power and a campaign that allows potential voters to trust the system and participate.
Is voting abroad allowed?
From the OEV, they recall that, although the Constitution allows voting abroad in national elections, an amount approaching the total number registered outside the borders has never participated in previous elections of this type.
For his part, from Súmate, Delgado insisted that it is also necessary to find a formula to “instrument” the participation of Venezuelans registered to exercise their right to vote in Venezuela, but who now live outside the country, as well as those who do not They are registered and reside abroad.
Genesis Carrero Soto