Primary elections: October 22, but there are conditions that still need to be defined

October 22 is the preliminary date to hold the opposition primary elections. However, several essential aspects of the process are not yet defined and would significantly impact the support to the National Commission for Primary Elections (CNdP) and the intention to participate in the event.

The primary elections are tentatively scheduled to be held on Sunday October 22. However, this date is still in flux, especially if the CNdP fails to manage the technical support of the National Electoral Council (CNE) for the automated process of voting, vote count and vote tallying.

According to the schedule prepared by the advisory technical commission of primary elections, the deadline to make a decision regarding the technical assistance of the electoral body is April 15.

Why is there still no decision on this issue? The National Commission for Primary Elections and the Unitary Platform have submitted the CNE and the government of Nicolás Maduro respectively the request to use the voting place locations to be used in the 2024 presidential elections to hold primary elections, to be allowed to use the voting automated platform of the electoral body and to be ensured that if the CNE’s voting devices are used, the voter biometric identification of those who cast their votes in primary elections will be excluded.

Avoiding voter biometric identification of those who cast their votes in primary elections is a point of honour for the Venezuelan opposition.

Following the primary elections held in 2012, the Venezuelan government tried to access the list of registered voters in primary elections to presumably pressure those public employees that participated in the process. If biometric identification modules are included in primary elections, the government of Maduro will have the complete list of voters in primary elections.

Concerning the amount of polling place locations and stations, the CNdP expects to open between 4,000 and 5,000 polling place locations in Venezuela, with 7,000 voting stations distributed (in a presidential election the CNE opens approximately 12,000 voting place locations that include 30,000 polling stations).

In the absence of an agreement with the CNE and if the voting process, vote count and tallying are manual, the electoral infrastructure would reduce approximately up to 2,000 polling place locations that could include up to 4,000 polling stations.

The deadline for the CNdP to make a decision on the technical assistance of the CNE is April 15, 2023.

In addition to the technical assistance of the CNE, the other issue that remains unaddressed is related to the vote of Venezuelans abroad. The first obstacle to allow the participation of Venezuelans abroad is the economy. To date there is no budget to organize the election outside the country (it would always be manual, although supported by the CNE internally). Another obstacle for the vote of Venezuelans abroad in primary elections is related to the technical-political criterion to define the electoral roll outside the country.

There are three scenarios:

1) Allowing the participation of Registered Voters only and that are qualified to vote outside Venezuela in the 2024 presidential election. Currently, only 107,000 Venezuelans are registered to vote abroad.

2) Due to logistical and budgetary reasons, allowing the participation of Venezuelans abroad only in the main immigrant-friendly cities.

3) Allowing approximately 4.3 million potential voters to cast their votes manually abroad.

These three scenarios include the debate on whether the political convenience to allow the vote of those citizens that will not be able to participate in the 2024 presidential election abroad (for legal and operational reasons) may affect the election of the presidential candidate of the opposition.

In addition to the CNE issue and vote abroad, there is no clear criterion on the participation of disqualified presidential candidates. The fact that a politician disqualified by the government of Maduro wins primary elections but later is not able to register their nomination before the CNE is a process that inevitably requires negotiating the political and electoral conditions that must be addressed in Mexico (this process is suspended since December 2022).

María Corina Machado. A strong candidate
In the absence of the most relevant technical aspects of the process -that may influence the voting trends – the announce of a preliminary date to hold primary elections coincides with the advantage of coordinator of Vente Venezuela María Corina Machado and businessperson and comedian Benjamín Rausseo (El Conde) as strong candidates within the opposition.

According to the schedule of primary elections, July 24 is the deadline for the registration of candidates for primary elections.

To date, two names are highlighted over the rest of the pre-candidates: Benjamín Rausseo and María Corina Machado, according to the filtered researches of More Consulting and Datincorp.

However, it is worth highlighting that it is still too early to assess preferential voting for primary elections, because the event has not been convened. The specific candidates that will run for elections are unknown, as well as the decision to be made by the National Committee for Primary Elections (CNdP) on two complex issues: Accepting the technical assistance of the National Electoral Council to organize the event and establishing the criteria for allowing the participation of Venezuelans abroad.

More Consulting*
The most recent research conducted by More Consulting focused public debate on the so-called “horse race”. However, it has other elements that should not be separated from the analysis of primary elections.

The first aspect that must be highlighted from the research regards the data of political self-definition. Despite the precarious situation of the country, how many Venezuelans claim to be chavistas?

According to More Consulting, 25% of citizens identify themselves with the government, while 3 out of 10 Venezuelans define themselves as opponents. As has been the case since many years, most Venezuelans claim to be independents. According to the aforementioned research, this group is represented by 43.4% of the population.

In addition, it stresses how the government and opposition segments are divided. According to the segmentation made by More Consulting, the government is made up of two equal-sized groups: 12.2% are pro- government-chavistas and are identified with Nicolás Maduro, while 12.9%, although recognize themselves as pro-government-chavista, are not identified with the president.

The case of the opposition is no different. Those who recognize themselves as political opponents of the national government are divided as follows: 16.5% claim to be opponents, but are not identified with the opposition leadership, while 15%, apart from being self-defined as opponents, state that they support their leaders.

The majority want a political change
Most Venezuelans, regardless of their political hue, agree on the fact that the country needs a political change. 94% of independent respondents, 97% of opponents and 59% of chavistas agree with this idea. In total, 86% of citizens, regardless of their political hue, state that the country needs a political change.

However, the opponents and independents understand that a political change does not have the meaning assigned by the citizens that recognize themselves as pro-government-chavistas at this moment.

From a list provided by the pollster to the citizens identified with chavistas and that said that Venezuela needs a political change, 35% consider that it is necessary to ease sanctions in exchange for the conditions to hold presidential elections in 2024, while 20% believe that the way to achieve a political change is the emergence of opposition new leaders that do not confront the government, 18% said that sanctions must be eased and Maduro must be allowed to rule the country and 13% believe that it would be wise that chavistas remain in power, but with a leader different from Maduro.

In the case of opponents and independents, the majority of respondents said that the change must be a result of a negotiation process leading to the easing of sanctions in exchange for electoral conditions.

Primary elections or consensus?
The majority of Venezuelans self-defined as opponents (31.5%) and those who claim to be independents (43.4%) consider that the mechanism to choose the opposition candidate must be primary elections.

Seven out of 10 opponents believe that primary elections are the best choice, while only two opponents consider that a consensus between political party leaders is the best mechanism. In this group, only one out of ten said that it would be necessary to define the respondent through surveys. There is a similar position among independents. Six out of 10 people stated that primary elections are the best mechanism, while two said that the election must be by means of a consensus.

Who the opponents vote for?
From the list highlighting María Corina Machado, Benjamín Rausseo (El Conde), Manuel Rosales, Henrique Capriles Radonski, Juan Guaidó, Henry Falcón, Juan Pablo Guanipa, Gustavo Duque, Antonio Ecarri, Carlos Prosperi, Andrés Velásquez, Bernabé Gutiérrez and Nicmer Evans, more than a third of the citizens support the coordinator of Vente Venezuela.

Specifically, among the opponents (35.1% of the population) up to 36.8% said that they would vote for Machado, 13% support El Conde, 11% would support Manuel Rosales and 9.2% would vote for Capriles Radonski.

When filtering the answers using the answer of opponents and independents, Machado’s advantage is reduced. 24.8% said that they would support the coordinator of Vente, 17.5% support El Conde and 11.9% would support Rosales.

The second vote choice suggests a phenomenon that must be assessed when the event is formally convened. The second vote choice for 16% of opponents would be El Conde, while 15.9% said that it would be Machado and 13% support Capriles Radonski. In the case of linking the answers of opponents and independents, 17% said that they would not vote for a candidate different from their first vote choice, while 13.8% consider that they would support Machado and 13.2% would support El Conde.

This research conducted by More Consulting shows that at this moment the candidates from traditional parties do not have a significant support. However, the analysis cannot ignore that primary elections are an event of party machines, something that María Corina Machado and El Conde lack.

Most rejected candidates
Citizens seem to turn their backs on the pre-candidates representing traditional parties at this moment. Who would you never vote for in primary elections? 23% of opponents highlighted Juan Guaidó, 14% suggested Henry Falcón, 11.4% mentioned Capriles Radonski and 9.5% stressed Rosales.

Only considering the opinion of independents (43% of Venezuelans) Guaidó is the most rejected candidate. 31.6% said that they would never vote for the former president of the National Assembly in primary elections. When grouping the opinion of opponents and independents, Guaidó (28%) and Capriles Radonski (10.8%) are the most rejected candidates.

When analyzing the voting scenario between the four main candidates (according to the research conducted by More Consulting), the support to Machado and El Conde are not affected.

Between Machado, El Conde, Guaidó and Capriles Radonski, up to 39.4% said that they would support the coordinator of Vente Venezuela, while 21.9% would support El Conde, 15% would support Guaidó and 14% would support Capriles Radonski.

When grouping the opinion of opponents and independents, 32% said that they would support Machado and 27% said that they would vote for El Conde. In this scenario Capriles Radonski brings together 14.6% and Guaidó 10.5%.

When including Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales to replace Capriles Radonski, no significant changes are shown in the strong trend in previous questions: Machado and El Conde are still supported by the majority.

Machado vs El Conde
A María Corina Machado vs El Conde contest suggests that the coordinator of Vente outpolls the dispute between opponents, but fails to differ Rausseo in votes among the independents. Most opponents said that they would vote for Machado (57%), while 41% of independents said that they would support El Conde. When grouping the trends of both groups, 47% of citizens would vote for Machado and 38.7% support El Conde.

On these scenarios, it is worth noting that the pollster did not interview the opponents and independents that are very willing to vote in primary elections. Therefore, voting simulation exercises are conducted on the basis of the universe of opposition and independent voters without distinguishing those who are more willing to participate.

Datincorp**
According to Datincorp -without filtering the results according to political self-definition or to willingness to vote- 24% of citizens said that they would support María Corina Machado in primary elections, 16% would support Benjamín Rausseo “El Conde del Guácharo”, 15%

would support Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales and 11.96% would support former presidential opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. In this case, only 3.25% (within the sampling error of the study) said that they would support Juan Guaidó.

Like More Consulting, Datincorp assessed the “second choice candidate” for voters in case they could not vote for their preferred candidate. In this scenario, María Corina Machado ranks the first choice, accumulating 18% of preferences, followed by Henrique Capriles Radonski who would be supported by 11.39% of voters, while Manuel Rosales would be supported by 10.36% and El Conde del Guácharo by 10%.

In a voting scenario of four choices, with a list of candidates including coordinator of Vente Venezuela Machado, Capriles, El Conde and Guaidó, up to 32% of respondents said that they would support Machado, while 21% would choose El Conde and 16% said that they would support Henrique Capriles Radonski.

If this scenario is repeated including Manuel Rosales and removing Capriles Radonski, the result shows no significant changes. 34% said that they would vote for Machado, 19.35% for El Conde and 15.66% for Rosales. Guaidó would be supported by 6.35% in this case.
In a scenario of three candidates (Machado, Capriles Radonski and El Conde) 35% would vote for the coordinator of Vente Venezuela, 23% for El Conde and 16% for Capriles Radonski.

In the event of a polarized event between Machado and El Conde, 41% said that they would support the pre-candidate representing the organization Vente Venezuela and 28% would support El Conde”. In this case, 20% said that “they would not vote for any candidate”.

Political self-definition
According to Datincorp, 58% of Venezuelans are not identified with chavistas nor with the opposition, while 12.67% are identified as “radical opponents” and 8.22% claimed to be identified as a moderate opponent. 8.39% of government supporters claimed to be radical chavistas and 8.47% said that they are moderate chavistas.

** Datincorp Datasheet
The reference date of the research is February 5. It involved 1,193 interviews in households of 16 states of the country with a sampling error of 2.84%. According to the datasheet of the research, the states selected for the research (including the Capital District) account for 90% of Registered Voters.

 *More Consulting Datasheet. More Consulting research was conducted between January 12 and 17. It consisted of 1,500 telephone interviews to Registered Voters. The sampling error of the study is +/- 2.83% and its confidence level is 95%.

Artículos destacados

Para el debate