Venezuela election: 'change has begun' as political prisoners may see amnesty

Venezuela awoke to a new political landscape on Monday, after the country’s opposition won an overwhelming victory in parliamentary elections in the oil-rich nation struggling with a severe economic crisis and rampant violent crime.
Candidates for the opposition seized a majority in the national assembly, marking a major shift in the polarized country, which set out on a leftist path in 1999 under the late president Hugo Chávez and his project to make Venezuela a model of what he called “21stcentury socialism”.

Fireworks burst in the sky above Caracas as election officials announced partial results of the vote, indicating the opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) had broken the dominion that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has held on the legislature for 16 years.
In the opposition stronghold of Altamira, cars honked their horns in celebration throughout the night.
“Venezuela wanted a change and today that change has begun,” said Jesús Torrealba, leader of the MUD coalition.
The opposition coalition won at least 99 seats in the 167-seat unicameral national assembly, electoral authorities announced early on Monday. The ruling socialist party took 46 seats.
If the opposition take 13 of the 22 remaining races, it would secure a two-thirds supermajority, allowing it to pass major legislation, sack supreme court justices or even convene a convention to rewrite Chávez’s 1999 constitution.

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Torrealba repeated a promise to use the opposition’s new-found strength to work on an amnesty for political prisoners, promising to return the rights of “those who have been unjustly persecuted, jailed, blocked from politics or exiled”.
Venezuela’s best-known jailed politician is Leopoldo López, sentenced to nearly 14 years on charges of promoting political violence in 2014 that killed 43 people. But the opposition has a list of what it says are more than 70 other political prisoners.
President Nicolás Maduro recognized the “adverse results” but said the outcome of the election was not the end to the “Bolivarian revolution” he inherited from Chávez who died in 2013 from cancer.
“We have lost a battle today but now is when the fight for socialism begins,” he said in a late-night address.
Five hours after polls closed, election officials announced partial results, giving the MUD 99 seats and the PSUV 44 seats. The winners of 22 additional seats had yet to be determined.
The vote was seen as a referendum on Maduro’s handling of the country, which despite having the world’s largest oil reserves, faces chronic shortages of basic foods, inflation in the triple digits and a wave of violent crime.
The government says much of the country’s woes are the result of an “economic war” being waged against the government by the opposition and the United States, exacerbated by the shrinking price of oil, Venezuela’s lifeblood.
“The economic war has won, for now, circumstantially,” Maduro said, predicting that the opposition would try to dismantle the gains of the “Bolivarian revolution”, which while oil prices were high established a broad social welfare system that won Chávez a fervent following.
Maduro’s term ends in 2019, but hardliners among the opposition want to force him out next year through a recall referendum.
“I can’t see this government finishing its term because it is too weak,” said opposition leader Henry Ramos. “Internal frictions are beginning. They’re blaming each other for this huge defeat.”
In the working-class 23 de Enero neighbourhood Carlos Ortega, a retired construction worker and long time chavista, worried about an opposition win.
“Things are going to get worse for us,” he said across the street from the school where he had just voted for the chavista candidate of his district.

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“My pension is going to disappear,” he said. “And I can forget about getting assigned a house through the ‘housing mission’,” said Ortega, referring to a current government program to grant social housing to the poor.
“With an opposition win, all that is over,” he said.
But Alexandra Barreto, a 32-year-old systems engineer, hopes that with the opposition controlling the assembly, changes will be positive.
“Today if you aren’t killed by street crime, you die of hunger or from something as simple as dengue,” she said while standing in a long line in the eastern Caracas district of Petare, waiting to cast her vote. “There is no security, basic subsidized foods are scarce and essential medicines are hard to come by.”
“What had to happen, happened,” said Rosa Gutiérrez, a housekeeper, of the opposition victory. “The road ahead won’t be easier but we have to start somewhere,” she said.
The opposition victory was the latest in a string of setbacks for incumbent Latin American populist leaders, including Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, whose hand-picked candidate Daniel Scioli was defeated last month by the centre-right Mauricio Macri. Latin America’s left gained power in the wake of Chávez’s ascent but more recently has been struggling in the face of a region-wide economic slowdown and voter fatigu

$15m bribery allegation: Nuhu Ribadu lied – Ibori

Chief James Onanefe Ibori has described as horrible, revolting, nasty and totally false, the devilish claim made by Mr. Nuhu Ribadu in several newspapers and on-line publications of Monday 7th December 2015.

Ibori and Ribadu

In a statement released by Chief Ibori’s Media office and signed by Mr. Tony Eluemunor, Chief Ibori’s Media Assistant, Ibori’s first reaction was to once again overlook the wild claim as Ribadu appears to be back at his game.
“As the Senate and some security agencies appear to be asking questions about some unwholesome events at the EFCC, including the mismanagement and criminal diversion of funds from the sale of confiscated properties into personal pockets, Ribadu may have a need to attempt to burnish his fading image, fearing the investigations may ask questions about events during his tenure. But he should be told that lying, against even an enemy, just to gain some unearned applause and perhaps fence off some approaching investigation and image disaster,must have a limit,” the statement reads.
Ribadu claimed in the news reports: “Ibori approached me with $15million to stop his investigation. I called my people because the money was in big bags, which two people could not carry and we deposited it in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as evidence against him”.
“This nonsensical statement has remained in the public domain only because some people have suspended their sense of disbelief and condemned themselves to every hogwash that Ribadu invents in the attempt spruce himself up in borrowed plums”.
“It is on record that Ribadu has made at least five statements over this same claim, and no single one agreed with another. Also both Ibrahim Lamorde (the immediate past EFCC Chairman(and one James Garba, a CBN staff then seconded to the EFCC, made police statements which contradicted Ribadu’s. Even Senator Andy Uba said in a statement that EFCC collected the said money from his house’.
‘Nigerians should know that it was the money from Obasanjo’s Third Term Tenure elongation bid that was dressed up as a bribe just to demonize Ibori. Some five billion dollars were employed to bribe the national and state legislatures to support the accursed project, with certain individuals receiving from N50 to N200 million’.
“The attempt to shoot Ibori down began in 2003, when some PDP Governors were opposed to Obasanjo’s second term bid. That money, sourced from wherever, was used against Ibori, as part of that long-time ‘bring Ibori down project’ . We challenge any newspaper or magazine to check all the statements on this bribery allegation and see how each of them, including Ribadu’s five different statements, howls to Ribadu himself: “you are a damned liar”. We challenge the journalists to please hasten to prove us liars by looking into those statements”.
In this latest report, Ribadu told another damned lie: “I arrested Ibori and prosecuted him. Since his friend was in power, they removed me, sent me to a school as a student where I was once a teacher”.
Source: Vanguard news

Buhari, Atiku, others urge PDP to learn from APC’s success story

President Mohammadu Buhari and other eminent Nigerians, Monday, challenged the PDP and other opposition parties in the country to learn from the tenacity and rough path to glory of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) in order to advance the democratic space and good governance in the country.
They threw the challenge at the public presentation ceremony of the book: From Opposition to Governing Party: Nigeria’s APC Merger Story, written by the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, at Yar’ Adua’s Centre, Abuja.
In his remarks, President Mohammadu Buhari, described the book as a compendium of political history of APC’s success story, worthy of emulation by every opposition party.
The President, who commended Onu for authoring the book, traced the history of APC’s merger, which said was a very torteous journey for all the merger forces that gave birth to the ruling party.
He said the book would not only be an asset to the economic development of the country but also politically. He stressed the need for every politician and parties to learn for the book what it takes to rise from opposition to ruling party, describing it as an intellectual exercise.
‘‘Onu has not only contributed economically by writing this book but politically. It is a product of intellectual and political work. We are inclined not to learn from the history but this book will serve as a compendium of our checkered political history for everyone to learn from our political past and move the nation forward.
‘‘Without the emergence of APC, PDP would have killed Nigeria. That is why we stood our ground tenaciously in the midst of failures and difficulties to form APC. After I lost three times in the presidential election I decided not to contest again but people came and persuaded me to run again, saying that, ‘‘I no longer belong to myself but to them and urged me to accept their request.’’
He however, challenged the Minister to use his wealth of experience and intellect to transform the nation through his ministry by producing creative and innovative scientists.
‘‘As a scientist, I can trace my relationship with Ogbonnaya Onu to 2005, during the early days of the formation of APC merger. I throw the challenge to him and I would want to see how many world class scientist he will produce for Nigeria,’’ he said.
Earlier in his address, former Vice President and Chairman of the occasion, Atiku Abubakar, said Onu’s appointment was a well-deserved.
He described the Minister as a gentle man, with amazing intellect with sense of focus, humility and honesty.
He said the book represents story of patriotism, hope, determination and sacrifice for humility and above all for change, which Nigerian have long awaited.
‘‘It is amazing for him to find time to chronicle a book on the progressives to come together in the interest of the country to provide alternative leadership.
‘‘For me, it is a story of patriotism and hope, determination, sacrifice for humility and above all for change,’’ he added.
The former Vice President went further to commend the author for putting together the history of the ruling party and how it snatched power from the former ruling party, the People Democratic Party (PDP), which he said ‘‘has lost its soul and abandoned its patriotic principles.’’
For him, the story of APC, will place Nigeria as a reference point for other African countries to learn from.
‘‘Nigeria’s story in Africa makes this a story of innermost lessons for all African countries. I have no doubt that you have the capacity for a multi-task to drive the ministry of science and technology to the desired level,’’ he said.
In his goodwill message, the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwa, said his emergence as the Speaker of the seventh Assembly was as a result of the effort of all the forces that formed APC.
Tambuwa, who described Onu as a man of many parts, said the book will ever remain a reference point for all political parties, which for him was a classical outing for Dr. Onu.
Source: Emmanuel Elebeke