Setting aside his agreement or not with the Supreme Court of Justice, Rafael Simón Jiménez, vice president of the CNE, maintains that it was not necessary to modify the Constitution to increase the number of deputies to the National Assembly (AN), as approved by the Electoral Power, following the guidelines of the Constitutional Chamber.
In interview for Últimas Noticias, the main rector of the CNE, announced that the electoral campaign will have public financing, denied that the electoral process called to elect the new AN, is being done "to the bullies." But, in addition, he explained how the 48 deputies will be awarded, extracted from the party lists, he predicted that the new parliament will be "much more plural" and predicted that people will go out to vote "as long as they see that there is no other departure".
What are the novelties of the rules approved by the CNE which will govern the 6-D elections?
-The novelties of these rules is the increase in the number of deputies to choose. Secondly, the modification in the award system, which was traditionally 70% per circuit, bone by majority vote and 30% only by proportional representation, and that percentage is inverted 50 to 50. In other words, in each state they will choose 50% of the representatives that correspond by list and 50% by circuit. And there is a list, which is perhaps the most notorious of all, is a list that is called the complementary award of 48 national parliamentarians who are the ones who really increase the number of parliament. Of the 110 new deputies to be elected, to reach 277, these are 48, a provision is established that any state that has less than three deputies, must choose at least three. Historically, the issue of proportional representation and the issue of how to mitigate the gripping consequences of the majority system has been a vindication of small parties.
-Why is it a demand of the minority parties?
-Always in Venezuela, since the times of the fourth republic, the parties bid or fought because there was a much more democratic system, let's say, that the votes were translated into suffrage and well it is part of the agreements that were signed at the Dialogue Table National, that they are going to expand, not only the number of deputies, but it is going to result in a much more diverse, much more plural, much more poly-colored parliament.
-The CNE changed the percentages. From 70% (vote for circuits) and 30% (vote for lists), it went to 52% nominal and 48% list. Why?
-The perversion of that system (the old one) is that he who comes first, the first minority or majority, takes everything. Sometimes the largest mass of voters is left out, without representation. I explain to you, a deputy who competes for a circuit, suppose you Chacao and get 28% of the votes and compete against 5 who get 26%, 24%, 12%, all the rest of those votes are lost; that is, they have no representation. For this reason, we sought to mitigate the effect of the uninominal method.
And these 48 deputies how will they be awarded
-Awarded by a national list, whose number of votes will be counted by the votes obtained by each party from the regional lists. It is a mathematical formula ... well, you know that there are people here who, if you tell them one thing, if you put the smallest parliament in, say that it is totalitarianism, if you put it bigger, they say that it is the dictatorship of the proletariat, bone the polarization boy, is the death of the truth.
- Is the party system prepared to assume these changes?
- It is that it is a requirement of the parties, it is a requirement, it is a concession made by the Government or the Psuv, the Table of Negotiations and Agreements. It is a concession to the opposition. And another important thing, is that it was agreed and this was announced by the president of the CNE yesterday, is that there are no changes in the circuits; that is to say that the circuits that were in the 2015 elections, remain like this.
-The opposition parties that asked the Constitutional Chamber to designate a new CNE, also asked that the State finance the political parties, a request that was not resolved. How is that point?
-Because the financing of parties is expressly prohibited by the Constitution, but a financing mechanism for electoral campaigns will be established, which has been practiced in other times; that is, what the Constitution expressly prohibits is the public financing of the parties. But it does not prohibit and that has been a hole or a gap through which the demand of the parties has been made, that the electoral campaigns can be financed. The electoral campaigns are going to have public financing.
-Was it necessary to modify the Constitution to increase the number of deputies to the National Assembly?
-The interpretation made by the Supreme Court of Justice is that constitutional norms, as they are so difficult to modify, because they require extreme mechanisms not only in the procedure but later to vote them in a popular referendum, the interpretation is that, in this case, the Constitutional Chamber, which gave him power in the Constituent Assembly of 99 to develop constitutional norms, in the sentence what they say, that, taking into account the fundamental values of the Venezuelan people of participation, democracy, and political pluralism, they proceed to do some modifications. Because the Constitution cannot be a rigid body, a stony body, but it must adapt by way of legislative development to the new realities. That is the basis of the sentence.
-Based on that, then the amendment of the Constitution is not necessary for the increase of seats in the AN
It is not, because there was also a report there, which is another important thing, because they are saying that this was done to the bullies, I do not know if the National Statistics Institute (Ine), the figures it gives are true or false, I am not a guarantor, but well those are the figures that the Constitution provides. We received a report according to which the Venezuelan population, as of December 6 of this year in projection, is going to have 32 million 778 thousand inhabitants, that applies to 1.1 and that gives 300 and so many votes that, divided between the base population, assign each state a number of seats.
So we would have one deputy for every 336 thousand 800 inhabitants
-Yes.
-There are voices that have said that they do not believe in these elections and are unaware of the electoral body. There is a CNE plan to reverse that current of opinion.
-Well who understands who wants to understand. I repeat to you that polarization is, as they say in my town, glasses with pig leather, the one who does not want to understand, does not understand it. The dilemma is very simple: vote or do nothing. And I say to the abstentionists, they have to propose an alternative route to people because it is very how to say 'don't vote', without telling them what the way is. And I believe that between the institutional campaign of the CNE and the political campaign of the political parties that are going to attend the elections, there are 29 national parties, it is a list that has not yet been completed, there are, I believe, 50 regional groups, voter groups; I mean, I notice a progressive change in trend. I have no illusions, I think it is premature to foresee what can happen, in short, but if I think that Venezuelans, as long as they see that there is no other way out, that they have no other instruments, that they have no other tools to change the things, they are going to vote.
