Venezuelans in area voice opposition
When Samuel Vilchez was a child in Venezuela, his parents’ opposition to the country’s leadership resulted in threats by pro-government militias and shots being fired at their home.
Afraid for their lives, the family sought political asylum in Orlando, where Vilchez, 20, is a youth activist.
On Tuesday, he and other Hispanic leaders gathered at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church in Orlando to exult over Sunday’s turnout of Central Florida expatriates who cast symbolic votes they hope will curb the power of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and lead to democratic reforms in the strife-ridden South American country.
“This community is getting stronger and showing we cannot be ignored,” said Vilchez, the 2015 valedictorian at Colonial High School who will be a junior this fall at Princeton University.
The plebiscite, which drew about 7.5 million Venezuelan citizens worldwide — including about 150,000 in Florida — was designed to show the strength of the opposition and push the leftist president into negotiations with his critics, said Philip Williams, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.
Ninety-eight percent of the voters rejected Maduro’s plan to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution, the opposition said.
“It was a massive turnout,” said Williams, also a UF professor of political science and Latin American studies.
In Central Florida, as elsewhere, the opposition put together the plebiscite in about 10 days mainly through social media and word of mouth. The local turnout was so heavy that organizers had to print thousands of extra ballots while people voted.
At Orlando Fashion Square mall, one of the polling places, voters draped in Venezuelan flags and wearing hats and shirts in the flag’s yellow, blue and red colors filled the normally nearly empty mall, providing a one-day boon to the ailing stores and eateries. There were 28,328 ballots cast at six polling places in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties.
Some voters — many of whom hold dual American and Venezuelan citizenship — waited for as long as six hours. The Kissimmee polling place closed five hours late, at 10 p.m., to accommodate all of those in line, La Mesa de La Unidad Democrática — The Democratic Unity Roundtable — spokeswoman Geisha Barazarte said.
“We need our freedom. That’s what we’re fighting for,” she said. “We don’t want to become another Cuba.”
Opposition organizers with the local La Mesa de La Unidad Democrática said only a handful of Central Floridians were in favor of Maduro’s proposal.
On Thursday, the opposition plans a daylong strike in Venezuela that it hopes will cripple public transportation and call more attention to residents’ plight. On Friday, the opposition-controlled National Assembly intends to replace Supreme Court judges who are allied with Maduro.
Meanwhile, the country is plagued with chronic food and medical shortages, crime, inflation and an ailing economy. Its oil industry, once a cash cow, has been mismanaged, hasn’t invested enough in technology or equipment and isn’t producing or supplying oil to other countries in the quantities it used to, Williams said.
Worse, protesters risk being blacklisted or killed. A 61-year-old woman was shot in the capital, Caracas, by men who sprayed a line of voters with bullets as they waited to cast their ballots. The Maduro government doesn’t recognize the plebiscite as legitimate.
For many Venezuelans in Central Florida, the political is personal. Fabiola Gomez, an Orlando special education teacher, sends food and toiletries to her mother, sister and other relatives back home every month because that’s the only way they can survive. She said the opposition is increasing its efforts because the regime has been ratcheting up its power grab.
“We have learned that we have to be involved,” said Gomez, 50, of the political and social group Casa de Venezuela Orlando.
While the vote is not binding, the idea is to exert pressure on democracies worldwide to intervene. The White House on Monday threatened sanctions if Maduro continues his quest to rewrite the constitution without input from his opponents. But on Tuesday, the Venezuelan foreign minister said a constitutional assembly would happen as planned on July 30. He also said the country would review its relationship with the U.S. “because we don’t accept humiliation from anyone.”
La Mesa de La Unidad Democrática in Central Florida is waiting to hear from opposition leaders in Venezuela before deciding its next move. It’s possible that the forms voters filled out will be destroyed for fear that they could fall into government hands, endangering people who oppose Maduro’s rule.
In the meantime, local La Mesa de La Unidad Democrática executive director William Diaz said, “We sent a huge message to the world. Everybody is talking about what happened Sunday in Venezuela.”