Sumate goes to trial

Originally published here

The judge reached a decision: SUMATE directive will go to trial (see also here), but they will not be in jail during the trial. According to Alejandro Plaz, the judge accepted all the evidence presented by the goverment and rejected almost all the evidence presented by SUMATE. In particular, some of the recommendations made by the Supreme Court in their November decision were not taken into account. Maria Corina Machado said that this is a form of intimidation to prevent SUMATE from keeping their campaign of education to have clean elections in Venezuela.

I agree with her. The goverment will do whatever it can to intimidate SUMATE, which is currently the only effective opposition movement in Venezuela.

SUMATE, BTW is just asking what in any democratic country is taken for granted. It can be enumerated in five points:

1.- A reliable electoral registry
2.- Overall audits
3.- Secret vote
4.- Manual counting
5.- Effective observers

So, if you are in Venezuela, show that you care about your five fingers.