EUGENIO MARTINEZ
EL UNIVERSAL

The National Electoral Council (CNE) board of directors decided indirectly on the single opposition candidate and the destiny of primary elections called by NGO Súmate. They "construed" unanimously that a recent ruling from the Constitutional Court, Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) does not compel Manuel Rosales, the governor of western Zulia state, to resign in the event of standing for presidential election.

On July 29th, the justices overruled a petition to revision, brought by the Electoral Power. They noted that any officials running for re-election do not need to quit their posts.

However, in the case of officials willing to be elected to a different position -Rosales' case- justices argued that they need to resign.

Justices failed to clarify whether resignation should be provisional -for the time of the campaign- or final.

Such ambiguity prevented the opposition nominees from agreeing on one single candidate and made they consider primary elections.

CNE board did not need to request from TSJ an elaboration on the ruling concerning election. The election directors deemed that they had the final decision "in accordance with the rights conferred upon by the Constitution and the Organic Law on Suffrage and Political Participation."

Under these instruments, CNE is entitled to organize, administer, monitor and follow up the parties to election processes, and clear any doubts and fill any gaps in electoral rules and regulations.

Based on this interpretation, CNE directors approved Tuesday the rules on resignation of officials running to president.

Borges waives nomination, Rosales is the candidate
After a long last there was white smoke. On Tuesday, after a meeting of almost four hours, candidate Julio Borges, for Primero Justicia (PJ), waived his nomination on behalf of Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, the candidate of Un Nuevo Tiempo.

PJ leader Carlos Ocariz confirmed the information. His party, he added, "will make any effort for Manuel Rosales to be the next Venezuelan president."

While Ocariz did not rule out a potential doublet including Rosales for president and Borges for vice-president, he noted that their support to the Zulian ruler was unconditional.

Four favor fingerprint-reading machines
On Tuesday night the talks began on the use of fingerprint-reading machines in the elections for president to be held next December 3rd.

During the rationale, CNE President Tibisay Lucena; Vice-President Janet Hernández; Sandra Oblitas, the president of the Civil and Electoral Registry Committee, and senior director Germán Yépez explained that the equipment of voters' biometric identification should be deployed to ensure the principle of "one voter, one vote."

For his part, Vicente Díaz, the head of the Political Participation and Fundraising Committee, repeated that fingerprint-reading machines should be removed to encourage turnout.

CNE directors will keep on discussing this issue Wednesday. Following the technical arguments, they will talk about the political appropriateness of using biometric identification. So far, fingerprint-reading machines came to stay.

Translated by Conchita Delgado