Elections in Venezuela: Defeated candidate in Chavez state congratulates elected opposition governor

The former opposition candidate to the state of Barinas, birthplace of Hugo Chávez, Claudio Fermín (considered a dissident of the majority anti-Chavista bloc in Venezuela), congratulated on Monday the winner in yesterday’s elections, the opposition Sergio Garrido, and celebrated “the legitimization of the vote as a method for the resolution of differences.” On behalf of the political organizations that supported me, we want to wish Sergio Garrido the best of success in his tenure as governor,” Fermin, who won 1.77 percent of the vote, said in a statement. Fermín considered that “the return to the electoral space and the great legitimacy that the vote has received is also to be applauded.” We hope that the lesson that the Barinese people are giving us will be heard above all by those who have reported that voting is a scoundrel, or that it is a dishonest act of collaborationism,” he said. Although he did not mention any politician directly, part of the opposition bloc, such as former deputy Juan Guaidó and anti-Chavista Leopoldo López – who has lived outside Venezuela for more than a year – have been skeptical about whether or not to go to the polls. For this reason, Fermín showed his hope that “this experience will definitively rectify the promoters of abstention who facilitated political continuity for many years.” Garrido won yesterday in the electoral repetition of Barinas by obtaining 172,497 votes (55.36%) against the official candidate, former Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, who obtained 128,583 (41.27%). Barinas had been ruled since 1998 by direct relatives of Hugo Chávez (President of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013), turning the region into a fiefdom that seemed untouchable until just over a month and a half ago. Already on November 21, the opposition candidate Freddy Superlano won, by a much lower margin than that obtained that Sunday -less than 1%-, the official candidate of that time, Argenis Chávez.No however, the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) annulled the results by alleging that the anti-Chavista presented himself in the contest despite being disqualified and ordered to repeat the elections.

Original source in Spanish