It’s no secret that Venezuela is a cosmetic democracy in which President Nicolás Maduro resorts to all kinds of dirty tricks to retain absolute powers, but his latest move — designing ballot sheets designed to confuse opposition voters — would be almost amusing if it weren’t so devious.
Earlier this week, Venezuela’s government-controlled National Electoral Commission released the ballot sheets for the crucial Dec. 6 legislative elections, which place the opposition’s “Unidad” (Unity) coalition, best known by its MUD acronym, next to two other non-related parties that — surprise, surprise — are also named “Unidad.”
“It’s another government trick, ” MUD secretary general Jesus “Chúo” Torrealba told me in a telephone interview. “The government has invented and financed micro-parties that are posing as opposition parties and use the same name, but in reality are government satellite parties created to confuse voters.”
Indeed, the ballot sheet’s three “Unidad” boxes are next to each other. While the first “Unidad” box at the bottom left of the ballot sheet corresponds to the real MUD opposition coalition, the other two are respectively named “Min-Unidad” and “UnidadDR” and look very similar.
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Etiquetas: Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela
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