Venezuela electoral campaign moves forward ahead of July 28th presidential election
*Head of “Venezuela Nuestra” campaign command assures they will recognize CNE´s election results
*Jorge Rodriguez denounces that there are sectors that intend to win the election with bots
*Head of “Venezuela Nuestra” campaign command denounces opposition plan to not recognize election results
*Jorge Rodriguez denounces that there are sectors that intend to win the election with bots
*Head of “Venezuela Nuestra” campaign command denounces opposition plan to not recognize election results
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NewsTranscript
00:00And we go live now to Caracas to our Special Envoy Yunus Sones.
00:06Yunus, what is the latest information now ahead of the July 28th presidential election
00:11after the recent declarations by the head of the Venezuela Nuestra Campaign Command,
00:16Jorge Rodriguez?
00:19Hello, good day from Caracas, Venezuela.
00:26Just minutes ago, Jorge Rodriguez finished his press conference.
00:31Jorge Rodriguez is general coordinator of the campaign Our Venezuela that supports the
00:37candidacy of Nicolás Maduro, the current president.
00:41But Jorge Rodriguez responded to another act that occurred yesterday, on Thursday.
00:47On Thursday, Biagio Pilieri, the spokesperson of the Democratic Unitary Platform, has announced
00:54in a press conference that his movement, which is the extreme right-wing oppositional
01:00movement, will only count those ballot results that they achieve on election day.
01:07They will gather their results from each of the 15,000 voting centers and abide only by
01:14that count.
01:15Thus, Pilieri implicitly has stated that they will not abide by what the National Election
01:23Council, which is the official institution responsible for the elections, will announce.
01:29Now to this statement, Jorge Rodriguez responded in his press conference.
01:33He compared this behavior with a football match where one of the teams brings its own
01:39referee to the game and only abides by the ruling of its own referee.
01:44That is, only when its own referee says it's a penalty, then they play a penalty.
01:50But Rodriguez said this behavior of not abiding by the institutional framework of Venezuela
01:56and its legislative framework is part of a bigger plan.
02:00And he started mentioning that part of the opposition has already abandoned campaigning
02:06for the elections.
02:07They are not even campaigning, they are not seeking votes because they don't have the
02:11votes and instead they have bots, he said, referring to artificial intelligence figures
02:19in social media and the internet.
02:23The plan of the opposition, what is it, according to Jorge Rodriguez?
02:27They want to first promote more the polls that are being published by media, and especially
02:35he named here the CNN Spanish media, but also other media, communications media like Bloomberg
02:43and European companies and institutions.
02:47He said they are publishing news about polls which have been paid by oppositional figures
02:54and which show the oppositional figures in contradiction to the reality far ahead.
03:01And then he said they will continue by not recognizing the statement, the announcement
03:08of the National Election Council and promote instead their own numbers to the public.
03:17And then he said they will call foreign governments to not recognize the results which are published
03:24here in Venezuela by the official institution responsible for the elections, but and thus
03:31not recognize the winner which, according to Jorge Rodriguez, will clearly be Maduro.
03:37So this is a process which, according to Jorge Rodriguez, is a kind of repeat of what happened
03:43with Juan Guaido.
03:44He actually said this is a Guaido dos, Guaido zero dos version, a repeat of what had happened
03:54there with the opposition, already knowing that they are going to lose the election,
04:00they are abandoning campaign and they are not abiding the rules of the institutional
04:05framework.
04:06Here it is worth remembering that two major extreme right-wing oppositional candidates
04:11have not signed an agreement some weeks ago which was signed by all other oppositional
04:18candidates and President Maduro.
04:22They rejected the signature to recognize the announcement of the National Election Board.
04:30But Jorge Rodriguez is self-confident.
04:33He said first we will win and they know, referring to the opposition, they know we will win.
04:40That is why they abide by this plan.
04:43And he said on July 28 we will come out in crowds and we will celebrate our victory and
04:50we will celebrate and defend this victory with our lives if necessary, said the chief
04:56campaign, the chief coordinator of our Venezuela campaign supporting Nicolás Maduro.
05:02So he presented himself quite self-confident.
05:06He, to repeat it once, he says that the opposition has already partly abandoned campaigning and
05:12is abiding by other measures which are illegitimate, which are outside of the institutional framework
05:19and he presented himself still confident of winning the elections and of defending the
05:25victory achieved on July 28.
05:32Thank you, Yunus, for this updated information regarding the electoral process in Venezuela.