How Maria Corina Machado and the Venezuelan Opposition Prepared to Deny Maduro’s Victory

Around midnight on Sunday, July 28 the representative of National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela This broke the tension felt for several hours.

The whole world was paralyzed to know which of the two candidates had been elected president of the country: Nicolas Maduro, in power since 2013, or the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia.

And although the president promised to respect the people’s decision, speaking to the CNE, The official shouted that Maduro had been chosen with an overwhelming majority of 51.20%, thus maintaining his position for six more years.

The opposition knew that such a thing could happen. For that, They prepared well before the elections to demonstrate, with evidence, that Chavismo and Maduro would make some stratagem to ensure their place in government.

Opposition leader María Corina Machado was quick to tell the press and the world that “everyone knows what happened here” and that they will fight “to the end” to prove the truth.

This is how the Venezuelan opposition prepared to demonstrate electoral fraud, after the new victory of Nicolas Maduro.

Before the CNE confirmed the election results, something was already looking bad for the opposition. According to Machado, there were irregularities in “hundreds” of polling stations and the transparency system in which votes were updated suddenly collapsed.

So for several hours, no one knew anything about the count. It was only at midnight that the CNE declared on television that Nicolás Maduro was the new president of Venezuela and that Edmundo González had only obtained 44.2% of the preferences.

At the first press briefing after the announcement, Machado was categorical and assured that “Throughout the day, thanks to rapid counts, we have followed the evolution of participation hour by hour. This is not just another fraud. “This is ignoring and violating popular sovereignty.”

And that’s it The entire opposition had prepared for this scenario : They did everything they could to have proof, in case Maduro went back on his word.

This is how, as established BBC World , They sent 90,000 witnesses to nearly 30,000 polling stations across Venezuela to directly verify the true results of the presidential elections.

And it was not an easy task: the tables were under the guard of soldiers and supporters of the Venezuelan government, and there was a frivolous and alarming tension.

But The main task was to keep the minutes issued by each table once the polling stations have closed.

Thus, Machado, with Edmundo González, They initially announced that they had 40% of the minutes, the figures of which revealed that the opponent had been crowned president of Venezuela. not mature.

Furthermore, Last Wednesday, the opposition confirmed – and also published – 80% of the records supporting González’s victory.

“The way the minutes were published, one by one, all verifiable, is the result of a joint effort by programmers, witnesses and experts, which mixes the work of the CNE and that of the opposition. It is the result of a learning process that lasted a decade,” he said. BBC World Eugenio Martinez, Venezuelan electoral expert.

As established in the same media, The opposition is said to have cloned the electoral register databases, with all the ID cards activated for voting. That’s about 22 million people.

In this way, With the minutes in hand and the identification number of any Venezuelan, they could verify the real votes one by one. .

They also created an application to download the minutes and a secure server to protect them.

This was the card up the opposition’s sleeve: hundreds of Venezuelan engineers, present in the country and around the world, working on a system that would serve to deny possible electoral fraud, as in this case.

Martínez assures that the opposition’s “hope” of being able to show the world that Maduro came to power without the consent of his people has to do with the work of these witnesses “who come from the militant bases of the parties and are supported” by up to 600,000 citizens, who watch over its integrity.

“This is a decade-old human deployment flowchart and That’s why they were so prepared.”

Countries from Latin America and the rest of the world have asked the CNE to publish the original minutes. In this way, they have been able to demonstrate the veracity of their statements from last Sunday, according to which Nicolás Maduro deserved his victory.

The opposition has already published most of the minutes that they would have saved and which, obviously, attributes the victory to Edmundo González.

Following this possible cross-referencing of minutes, analysts believe that A kind of “minute war” can be set up, where the sectors will defend the official version. However, the opposition could be at a disadvantage because these issues would be resolved by the Supreme Court of Justice, which is controlled by Chavismo.

Machado, the opposition leader, spoke with The third Sunday and assured that “all, absolutely all serious investigations give Edmundo González an advantage of more than 26 points over Nicolás Maduro.”

“(…) Optimism is born from the strength, enthusiasm, confidence and hope that have emerged in Venezuela. “faced with the possibility of achieving a peaceful and orderly transition to democracy, so that our nation can live freely, with dignity and, above all, with the desire that all Venezuelans have to bring our children home.”

You can consult the minutes of the opposition by clicking here .