00:00 And to know now, to know more about the first day of registration of candidates to the presidential
00:08 elections in Venezuela, our correspondent Gladys Casada has prepared a summary of the
00:17 day.
00:18 Welcome Gladys, go ahead.
00:19 Thank you, Irma, for this contact and also for the time here in Telesur English and from
00:24 the South.
00:25 First, effectively, this afternoon and all morning was the postulation process for all
00:31 the nominees by each political force here in Venezuela.
00:35 First of all, in the morning was the opportunity for the opposition parties, and in this case
00:41 was the party Acción Democrática that submitted the document and all the registration process
00:50 for their candidate, Luis Eduardo Martínez.
00:54 Also the leader of the party, Bernabé Gutiérrez, was present and was giving his addresses and
00:59 declarations to the press, and they were stressing the need to find national unity, national
01:06 concord to find solutions to the actual problems of the nation.
01:11 They also praised some of the work of Nicolás Maduro Moros as the current president of Venezuela,
01:17 and they stressed they want to achieve the recovery of the Ezequiel region and also to
01:22 improve relationships with regional partners and regional neighbors.
01:28 And other occasion of this postulation process here in the National Electoral Council was
01:33 the party Arepa Digital, which is digital arepa, the arepa which is a sign of popular
01:39 food, a popular dish here in Venezuela, and they were proposing or they were presenting
01:46 their government program, which is based on a center position, political position, in
01:54 any case this is an alternative party, also from the opposition of the parties or the
02:00 opposition forces here in the country.
02:03 Also other of the postulations were from allies of the government, in this case Enamórate
02:11 de Venezuela, which is one alternative party, and also El Partido Podemos, the Podemos party,
02:18 those are two forces allied of the government and they are part of the great patriotic
02:24 pole, which is the main political force here in the country, and they were endorsing the
02:29 candidacy and the postulation of President Nicolás Maduro Moros as the main candidate
02:34 of the United Socialist Party and of all the coalition of different leftist political forces.
02:41 In this case this was the first day of nominations and I wanted to stress, because I know international
02:47 media and other leaders have created an opinion and have created a narrative that the opposition
02:55 in Venezuela has no right to come and nominate their candidates and do the process, the right
03:02 and judicial and established process to go to the polls.
03:06 On this occasion all the parties in the morning time were from the opposition forces and only
03:12 two of them in the afternoon time were from the allied forces of the government.
03:18 Those are the characteristics of this process, everyone that has a legal basis and is under
03:25 the protocol and the requisites that the National Electoral Council is establishing, they can
03:30 come here and they can nominate their candidates.
03:33 As we were saying in other moments, they have five days to do the postulation and afterwards
03:40 if the National Electoral Council rejects this postulation, this register, they can
03:45 go and appeal to this decision and find a legal solution to this kind of dispute.
03:51 So far those are the parties that have nominated candidates and I wanted to say also something,
03:58 because when you hear all the discourses, all the addresses of these parties, they have
04:03 been stressing the need to find a common solution for Venezuela and the need for peace and democratic
04:10 processes and they have been condemning violence and threats and extortion in all the cases
04:16 and they have been condemning the interference of other parties and other countries in the
04:22 internal processes of Venezuela.
04:24 So I think this is not only a show of the democratic power and the democratic processes
04:29 here but also a show that everyone with political power wants peace, they want development,
04:35 they want social inclusion, they don't want disparities and they don't want conflict.
04:41 So far this is the situation, the opposition is nominating their candidates, they are presenting
04:48 and registering and submitting the documents for their nominees to be legally registered
04:53 and legally recognized as candidates for July 28th presidential elections and also the coalitions
04:59 that are in favor and supporting the government are doing the same.
05:04 So everyone can come in here to the National Electoral Council to do the same.
05:09 Also the voters are still registering themselves and updating their information regarding their
05:14 legal documentation and setting everything as the details are required before the July
05:22 28th elections to go and do their vote, to take and to cast their vote.
05:28 And that's all of the petitions of the political parties.
05:31 Everyone has to come and vote, not to the blank vote and not to lower turnout.
05:37 They want people to come and vote and they are stressing the transparency that must have
05:42 this process of the general elections of July 28th.
05:46 That's the report, that is what's happening here in Venezuela today, March 21st and now
05:51 I'm going back to you.
05:55 Thank you, thank you Gladys Quezada from Caracas, Venezuela.
05:59 A very original journey.
