Madrid despierta con 70mil venezolanos apoyando #16JSiSiSi #ConsultaPopular #16JulVzlaDiceSi Venezuela vota Sí Sí Sí en Puerta del Sol pic.twitter.com/xbhOkHf2XB— Juan Mayoral🇻🇪🇵🇷🇺🇸🇲🇽🇪🇸🇫🇷🇭🇺🇨🇴🇮🇳 (@Quintajayuya) July 16, 2017
Puerta del Sol, Madrid, España 9:22am domingo 16 de julio 2017
I read somewhere that Venezuelans abroad accounted for over 715 thousand votes on Sunday’s popular consultation called by the National Assembly. Sovereign polling stations in more than a hundred countries drew unprecedented crowds —a clear sign of the magnitude of the diaspora of Venezuelans in recent times— that supported the democratic opposition’s stance of civil disobedience against the dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro.
Spain, with up to 300 thousand, is third to the United States and Colombia in the number of Venezuelan nationals currently within its borders. Madrid alone has a population of 70 thousand, followed closely by Barcelona and the Canary Islands.
33 thousand 660 people cast their votes in both of Madrid’s Sovereign polling stations, set up in the centric La Puerta del Sol and in the nearby Plaza Colón. There were also Sovereign polling stations in most large cities of Spain.
Ballots opened at 8:00 am local time —or in the wee hours of the night for Venezuela— and already hundreds were quietly waiting in line in a city where streets remained empty except for the early bird weekend joggers making their way to El Retiro park. Those of us that found ourselves at the end of the 150m single file queue, out of site and around the Plaza Colon’s block size monument of the discovery of America, were relieved when we heard our numbers being called out and then ordered to form ten distinct lines facing a long row of polling tables.
I headed to line #5 since my expired cédula —national ID card which I never renewed when it was due to in 1994— ends in that number. Volunteers were everywhere, informing us about the correct way to tick the ballot, “only ticks inside the boxes, no “x’s”” and reminding us to place the completed ballot in the numbered box that we were assigned.
The oversized example ballot slip I was shown had the three ticks marked on the “yes” column as a reminder of what the organizers seeked from the voters. At the polling table a volunteer checked my eligibility to vote: I had to be a bearer of a Venezuelan passport or cédula, no matter if these official documents were expired and I had to be 18 years of age or older.
I handed over my valid passport and my expired cédula. My name and cédula ID number were recorded on paper and I was asked to sign and place my inked thumbprint by its side. I was then handed the small ballot slip and asked to proceed to the voting station immediately behind and then to place it in a box numbered #23. I took shelter behind a cardboard screen and marked with a tick the three yes-no questions.
Before I let go of the slip I hesitated, double checking that I was aiming at the right numbered box for every time I am in front of a ballot my nerves strike in. To my satisfaction, the process was clear and it ran smooth. I was out of there in a jiffy.
You see the last time I was at the Venezuelan polls, things did not run smoothly for me and I stumbled into various obstacles, which began with the challenge months before of registering to vote at the Venezuelan consulate in Spain and which ended with the nerve wrecking task of deciphering the ballot slip I was presented with at the voting station. I refer to the 2013 presidential elections which were won in a super narrow margin by the personally appointed successor of a deceased Hugo Chávez: Nicolás Maduro.
Sunday was a good day for Venezuelans. Nicolás Maduro has denied us any type of election since he lost control of the National Assembly in December 2015, save that one which he is pushing to be held at the end of the month, the farce and so called “Constituyente”. At stake is the elimination of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the imposition of an absolutist Ferdinand VII —contemporarily speaking Pyongyang— style regime that Simón Bolívar liberated Venezuela from, as well as four other sovereign nations.
Resultados de votación en España. pic.twitter.com/5ha2OjElwd— RCTV.net (@RCTVenlinea) July 16, 2017
Plaza Colón, Madrid, España 8:30am domingo 16 de julio 2017
Plaza Colón, Madrid, España 8:44am domingo 16 de julio 2017
Desde @VenMundo exigimos un nuevo CNE que considere la diáspora de venezolanos en el exterior, @AsambleaVE #NuevoCNE pic.twitter.com/CW4As6X0hz— Venezolanos Mundo (@VenMundo) July 18, 2017
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