At 6:00 in the afternoon a delegation that accompanied of democratic opposition leader María Corina Machado and Venezuela’s presidential candidate Edmundo González, left the Vente Venezuela headquarters in Maracaibo ,capital of Zulia, to go to the site of the planned rally at the ‘5 de Julio’ Avenue.
Lexzys Lugo / Correspondent lapatilla.1eye.us
The truck that transported them could barely move through the crowd that occupied about 16 blocks of the avenue. It took them about two hours to traverse the close to three kilometers through a crowd of people that could range between 40,000 and 60,000 souls.
The caravan left in the company of cyclists, motorcyclists and skaters. Upon arriving at 5 de Julio Avenue, the Governor of Zulia State, Manuel Rosales, boarded the truck where Edmundo González’s wife was also present.
Slogans like “Yes, it will fall,” “Until the end,” “We are going to win and get paid,” were heard along the way. Many women cried and others exclaimed “count with my vote.”
While traveling along 5 de Julio Avenue, a woman who was co-riding a motorcycle exclaimed: “My faith is placed in you and Edmundo for the whole world. I want my children back, my family, I am alone,” she cried through tears.
On the journey she took along 72nd Street in the capital, the cars stopped to shake her hand and shouted, “María, I am with you and Edmundo.”
In the heat of the tour, a lady with her little son in her arm gave a rosary to Edmundo González, who immediately hung it around his neck, and with a big smile told him “we are going to win and we are going to collect.”
María Corina reported that her trip from Caracas to Maracaibo had taken more than 12 hours delayed by roadblocks put up by police and military personnel in the Lagunillas municipality, on the Eastern Coast of Lake Maracaibo.
Machado said with emotion that in the rural town of Palmarito in the Santa Rita municipality, a girl hugged her and burst into tears. Machado asked the little girl, why are you crying? and she responded: “Excited because my dad will be back. I have faith in God and in you.”
In the heat of the political campaign and five days before the presidential election, Machado denounced that the CNE does not allow printing the credentials of the democratic opposition poll witnesses at the voting centers. She asked the ruling body correct this and international observers to denounce this irregularity.
“To our polling witnesses, calm down, we are going to inform you what we are going to do. You cannot go to an election without table witnesses,” she pointed out.
Candidate Edmundo González Urrutia said that next Friday they will meet with representatives of the Carter Center and inform them about this violation of the electoral norm. He also urged the FANB (Bolivarian National Armed Forces) to do their job and avoid wrongdoing.