There are three scenarios suggested by Eugenio Martínez, a journalist specializing in electoral sources and coordinator for the Unit of Data Verification of Efecto Cocuyo, as he stated during his #ConLaLuz interview this Thursday, November 7.

During his conversation with Efecto Cocuyo’s General Director, Luz Mely Reyes, Martínez said that in the worst case scenario, in the year 2020, Venezuela would have three Parliaments: The one that will stop functioning in 2021, that is, the current National Assembly elected in December 2015; the Constituent National Assembly (ANC), and lastly, a new Legislative Power that would arise from an election with chavismo supporters and dissident opposers or rivals of Juan Guaidó, current National Assembly president.

“We have the first scenario where a new National Electoral Council (CNE) is partially appointed, but the groups surrounding Juan c do not participate in the 2020 parliamentary elections, but other dissident parties from the so-called G4 participate and therefore, we would have three parliaments next year: the 2015 Parliament, the 2020 Parliament, and the Constituent ANC; it is a very bad scenario,” he warned.

He said that at this moment, on November 7, 2019, this is the most probable scenario for the country, with the aggravating factor that the current National Assembly passed a statute of transition, where they stated that they will maintain their term until Nicolás Maduro’s usurpation of the Presidency ends, which further complicates the international panorama.

In an already unprecedented situation where over 50 countries recognize Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela, it may be that in 2021, these same countries only recognize the current Parliament, which would exacerbate the internal crisis.

“We could be looking at a 2021 with an international community that only recognizes the 2015 Parliament, and that would be the worst scenario for Venezuelans, because there would be further international pressures, further sanctions, and further instability for those of us suffering through this crisis,” he warned.

For this reason, Martínez said that now “all of us, despite our political inclinations, have to work towards uniting or forcing a consensus between these two blocks to resolve this conflict as quick as possible in 2010.”

2020 Parliamentary Elections and Recall in 2021

Another scenario would have the opposition jointly concurring to the 2020 parliamentary elections and in consensus with chavismo parties and a new CNE, invoking a recall referendum against Nicolás Maduro, and considering the presidential process of 2018 (unrecognized by the majority of the opposition and over 50 countries in the world), it would correspond to that consultation in 2021, and in that manner force out the governing Chavismo from power.

A third scenario would occur if rectors are not chosen during the current search for a new Electoral Power, and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice appoints the CNE members, and with this chavismo would newly gain the absolute majority in Parliament, upon attending this voting process alone.

This is the least favorable scenario for them. Martínez pointed out that, “in general, the option where chavismo advances alone towards Parliament would have been favorable a few years ago, but now it needs to have some international legitimacy and because of that, it needs the best elections,” which happens with a CNE “appointed by whoever must appoint it,” that is to say, Parliament. This means that chavismo needs “the best possible elections in 2020.”

The opposition, on the other hand, needs “an election under conditions to participate, with international observation and impartial arbitration, that goes beyond the CNE, including the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, the Electoral Chamber, and the Constituent ANC, because even with very technical rectors, they would not be able to do anything without independence,” he said.

How many rectors will be chosen?

He spoke about the current process to set up the committee of electoral nominations with the appointment of 9 of 11 members that make up the preliminary commission for now, and who are responsible for making the call for nominations, so that civil society can submit the names of those who would become the 10 people in the definitive committee.

Although this first step was taken, there are still two members of parliament to be named plus the 10 representatives from society, a process that should take up to 100 days, according to legislation, from the definitive installation of the nominations committee to the presentation of candidates for rectors, but in the current political situation, it could be shortened to 60 days, and we could have a new CNE by mid-January of next year.

Despite this, to this day it is not clear whether five rectors of Electoral Process will be chosen, or just two. This, according to Martínez, must be clarified. The current members were appointed in 2014 and 2016 by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice:

-In 2014, Tibisay Lucena and Sandra Oblitas (both ratified by the Supreme Court of Justice) and Luis Emilio Rondón. They were appointed as representatives from civil society, in light of the impossibility that the National Assembly, with a chavista majority, would reach a consensus to do it and legislative omission was mentioned. They were appointed until December 2021.

– In 2016, the Supreme Court of Justice, alleging contempt from the National Assembly, appointed Socorro Hernández as representative of university legal sciences departments and Tania D’Amelio as nominee for the Citizen Power (Public Prosecutor’s Office, Comptroller General’s Office of the Republic, and Ombudsman’s Office). They were not told how long their term would be, but according to Law it should be 7 years.

Because it has not been defined whether it is a partial or total renewal of the electoral organism, “there is no political certainty on how many rectors will be renewed, whether it is five, three, or two, and that changes the debate on how the nominations for rectors operate,” which Eugenio Martínez defined as one of the asterisks of the current process.

In the best case scenario, he pointed out that upon appointing a new CNE, there must be a restructuration to establish the counterweights within the organism; this implies ending the “absolute power” that Tibisay Lucena has wielded since 2006 while acting as President of the Electoral Power and the National Electoral Board, and also to define what will happen with Venezuelans abroad during a presidential election or changes in electoral constituency in case of parliamentary elections, due to the massive Venezuelan migration phenomenon.

“We need a great political agreement that would allow the CNE to make guarantees for the whole world, we are at the moment when political agreements prevail over laws. IT would be ideal to make advances in political agreement before advancing further in a process with very specific legal terms in order to know how many rectors will be renewed. Within the chavismo movement, it is said that the rectors are for parliamentary elections, and within the opposition movement, for presidential elections. There are no agreements for what type of elections will be held nor what type of rectors they are seeking, or if they are technicians or political operators for a determined process. There are a lot of agreements to be made surrounding this process that is just beginning so that it ends well,” he stated.

He recalled that in Barbados, with mediation from Norway, parliamentary and presidential elections were suggested for 2020, something that Maduro flatly refused along with the support that accompanied him, and so appointing a new CNE also requires “political agreement before the selection of rectors, because the bases that would become the natural counterweights of the electoral organism must be established. But the perfect scenario is not going to exist in the short or medium term, even so we have to go to the best election.”

Manual vote?

Martínez also addressed aspects of the automated system and Smarmatic’s proposal to “reset” the machines and set them to “zero,” to later conduct an audit and verify that the vote is not manipulated. He said that this is preferable to a manual paper vote, where the chavismo system still has a significant structure of electoral and social control, which would make it easier for them to manipulate results and we would be back to the famous “acta mata votos” [“certificate trumps vote”] process.

With a new CNE, the regulations should be set to define whether Venezuelans abroad need a legal residence to vote, and in the case of presidential elections, the countries with higher Venezuelan populations (Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and the United States) should lend logistic support to allow voting, that is to designate electoral boards and have witnesses for candidates.

“The majority of these problems can be resolved with legislative acts from the CNE, who should not only give political actors confidence, but the citizens as well. A recent survey from Consultores 21 says that with the current CNE, only 35% of Venezuelans would vote in a parliamentary election and 40% in a presidential election. Trying to settle our political conflicts when only 4 out of 10 or 3 out of 10 Venezuelans will make the choice will only aggravate the crisis.”