The Diplomat
A young Venezuelan woman, Lorena Lima, has been on an “indefinite” hunger strike in Madrid since the night of Friday 22nd to demand the opening of voter registration in the consulates of her countrywith a view to the presidential elections on 28th July.
Lorena Lima told Efe that she is asking the Spanish government to “take a stand on this issue” as a country which at the time celebrated the partial agreement reached in Barbados between the Venezuelan government and the opposition to guarantee democratic coexistence in the run-up to the elections.
Lima, who has set up a tent in front of the Venezuelan Consulate General, recalled that the electoral register should have been opened on 18 April so that those who wish to vote can register, but this is not yet possible, at least in Spain. The deadline is 16 April.
“To this day, this is something that happens in all Venezuelan consulates around the world”, said the young woman, who added: “if we don’t register, we won’t be able to vote; so, as a form of peaceful protest, I have taken this decision to put pressure on them, so that they open up and we can register and exercise our right to vote”.
Dozens of Venezuelans have already demanded on Friday in Madrid that the electoral register be opened in the consulates and called on the international community to put pressure on Venezuela to comply with the Barbados agreement and hold free elections.
Lorena Lima, who has lived in Spain for six years, believes that the elections in Venezuela “right now are not under fair conditions”, as the opposition candidate María Corina Machado, nominated by the opposition in a primary, is disqualified. “They won’t let Venezuelans abroad register to vote because they know that the vast majority of Venezuelans abroad are opposition”, and “it’s very bureaucratic everything they are asking you to do to register to vote”, she added.
On his “peaceful” protest, she commented: “I’m not going to ask anyone to come and stop eating here with me, but there are ways…. In other words, you can come to the consulate to keep asking, to keep pressuring, to keep pressuring through social networks, through the media, with banners, posters, but some form of protest that joins in, because if we don’t do anything, we are going to be left without a vote”.
Lima said that she has always been an activist and defender of human rights and that this is an individual protest, although any support is “welcome”. In fact, several Venezuelans are accompanying her so that she does not spend the nights alone.
