Raphael John-Lall

Free­lance writer

Sev­er­al Venezue­lans, who have lived in T&T and are now back in their home­land, re­main di­vid­ed on the ref­er­en­dum that Venezuela held on Sun­day.

Venezue­lans went out to vote in a ref­er­en­dum that asked them if the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, which present­ly con­sti­tutes two-thirds of Guyana, should be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to Venezuela.

Some 20,694,124 Venezue­lans were reg­is­tered to vote in the ref­er­en­dum.

Vot­ing cen­tres were ex­pect­ed to close at 6 pm. How­ev­er, vot­ing was ex­tend­ed for two hours. Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties are ex­pect­ed to re­lease the fi­nal num­ber on how many Venezue­lans vot­ed or how they vot­ed to the five ques­tions posed on Sun­day.

Al­though Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties re­mained tight-lipped about vot­ing ten­den­cies up to the time vot­ing sta­tions closed last night, Venezuela’s At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Tarek Saab praised the vot­ing process as easy and trans­par­ent.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to Venezue­lans in Venezuela by phone about their thoughts on the ref­er­en­dum dur­ing and af­ter the vot­ing process.

Ade­lai­da Davi­la, a hair­dress­er who spent five years in T&T work­ing, and re­turned to her na­tive City of Mara­cay in 2022, said she did not vote be­cause the gov­ern­ment was us­ing the ref­er­en­dum as a dis­trac­tion.

“I did not vote be­cause this is a gov­ern­ment trap. They want to sus­pend the 2024 elec­tions be­cause they know they can lose. That is not the way to re­cov­er our ter­ri­to­ry. Fur­ther­more, why now, af­ter so many years?”

Je­sus Balles­teros, a teacher who lives in the Venezue­lan state of Lara and who has al­so vis­it­ed T&T, is a staunch gov­ern­ment sup­port­er. He said it was his pa­tri­ot­ic du­ty to go out to vote.

“I vot­ed be­cause of our com­mit­ment to de­fend the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, which is Venezue­lan. The elec­toral process con­tin­ues to surge ahead, with an un­prece­dent­ed turnout that has sur­passed all ex­pec­ta­tions,” Balles­teros said.

The ref­er­en­dum took place de­spite a rul­ing by the judges at the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) last Fri­day, which or­dered Venezuela to re­frain from tak­ing any ac­tion that would al­ter the sit­u­a­tion on the ground in a po­ten­tial­ly oil-rich ter­ri­to­ry that is the sub­ject of a bor­der dis­pute with Guyana, which con­trols the area.

The court did not ex­press­ly for­bid Venezuela from go­ing ahead with yes­ter­day’s ref­er­en­dum over its rights to the re­gion around the Es­se­qui­bo riv­er, as Guyana has re­quest­ed.

At 6 am yes­ter­day, Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro ex­er­cised his right to vote at the Simón Ro­dríguez School in Cara­cas. Af­ter vot­ing, he spoke to re­porters and jus­ti­fied the ref­er­en­dum.

He said, “It is the first time, in 150 years of fight­ing for what is ours, for Guayana Es­e­qui­ba, that the doors of the elec­toral cen­tres are opened to con­sult the ab­solute opin­ion of the own­er of sov­er­eign­ty, to ex­er­cise ab­solute sov­er­eign­ty.”

To en­able the con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum, Venezuela’s elec­toral body, the Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil (CNE), set up 28,027 polling sta­tions, dis­trib­uted in 15,857 vot­ing cen­tres.

In ad­di­tion, more than 131,000 polling sta­tion wit­ness­es were ac­cred­it­ed. They had the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of en­sur­ing the trans­paren­cy of the elec­toral process.

Not on­ly did gov­ern­ment sup­port­ers vote, it al­so saw the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Venezue­lans who usu­al­ly sup­port op­po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal par­ties and their lead­ers be­cause Venezue­lans’ stance on the is­sue crossed par­ty and ide­o­log­i­cal lines.

Juan Car­los Al­vara­do, sec­re­tary gen­er­al of one of Venezuela’s old­est par­ties, the Chris­t­ian So­cial Par­ty (COPEI), vot­ed in the ref­er­en­dum. Manuel Ros­ales, the op­po­si­tion gov­er­nor of Venezuela’s largest state, Zu­lia, al­so vot­ed the ref­er­en­dum.

Par­ty (COPEI), vot­ed in the ref­er­en­dum.

Manuel Ros­ales, the Op­po­si­tion Gov­er­nor of Venezuela’s largest state, Zu­lia, al­so vot­ed in the ref­er­en­dum.

The five ques­tions asked

Venezue­lan cit­i­zens an­swered yes or no to five ques­tions that were unan­i­mous­ly ap­proved by the CNE and sub­se­quent­ly en­dorsed by Venezuela’s Supreme Court of Jus­tice (TSJ).

The five ques­tions were:

1. Do you agree to re­ject, through all le­gal means, the fraud­u­lent im­po­si­tion of the Paris Ar­bi­tral Award of 1899 that seeks to de­prive us of our Guayana Es­e­qui­ba?

2. Do you sup­port the Gene­va Agree­ment of 1966 as the on­ly valid le­gal in­stru­ment to achieve a prac­ti­cal and sat­is­fac­to­ry so­lu­tion for Venezuela and Guyana re­gard­ing the con­tro­ver­sy over the ter­ri­to­ry of Guayana Es­e­qui­ba?

3. Do you agree with Venezuela’s his­tor­i­cal po­si­tion of not recog­nis­ing the ju­ris­dic­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Ter­ri­to­r­i­al Jus­tice to re­solve the ter­ri­to­r­i­al dis­pute over Guayana Es­e­qui­ba?

4. Do you agree to op­pose, through all le­gal means, Guyana’s at­tempt to uni­lat­er­al­ly as­sert con­trol over the ocean pend­ing de­lim­i­ta­tion, il­le­gal­ly and in vi­o­la­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Law?

5. Do you agree with the cre­ation of the state of Guayana Es­e­qui­ba and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of an ac­cel­er­at­ed plan for the com­pre­hen­sive care of the cur­rent and fu­ture pop­u­la­tion of that ter­ri­to­ry, in­clud­ing, among oth­er things, grant­i­ng cit­i­zen­ship and Venezue­lan iden­ti­ty cards?