The scheme meant to compensate members of the Windrush generation wrongly classed as illegal immigrants has compounded the injustice, MPs say.
Four years after the scandal first emerged, the vast majority of people who applied for compensation have yet to receive a penny, a report by the Home Affairs Committee concluded.
The inquiry found “a litany of flaws” in the scheme’s design and operation.
“We continue to make improvements,” the Home Office responded in a statement.
The Home Office’s Windrush Compensation Scheme was launched in 2018 to “right the wrongs” of a scandal that had seen many thousands of British residents denied healthcare, housing or the right to work.
And some of those ended up being held detained or deported by immigration officials because the government wrongly classed them as illegal immigrants.
However, the experience of applying for compensation has now itself become a further trauma, the report found.
There are excessive burdens on claimants, inadequate staffing and long delays – and many of those affected “are still too fearful of the Home Office to apply,” the committee – a cross party group of MPs which examines government policy in areas including immigration and security – said in its report.
Four years on from the Windrush scandal, the committee concluded, vital lessons have still not been learned.
The scheme contains many of the same bureaucratic insensitivities that led to the Windrush scandal in the first place, the report said.
The Home Office took too long to engage at grassroots level to build trust in the scheme, it added.
Such delays mean that by September 2021, only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the scheme and only a quarter of these had received compensation.
The MPs highlighted the fact that 23 individuals died before receiving any compensation.
The politicians welcomed changes made to the scheme in December 2020 to speed up payments – but said these “were long overdue” and did not go far enough.
“It is truly shocking how few people have received any compensation for the hardship they endured at the hands of the Home Office,” said Yvette Cooper, who is chairwoman of the committee.
Campaigners took their case to Downing Street
“Urgent action is needed to get compensation to those who have been so badly wronged.
“It is staggering, given the failures of the Windrush scandal, that the Home Office has allowed some of the same problems to affect the Windrush Compensation Scheme too,” she added.
The report urges the Home Office to:
encourage more of the Windrush generation to apply for compensation
ensure everyone affected is granted some compensation quickly
increase the amount paid
guarantee legal assistance for all claimants
give greater support to grassroots campaigns
Responding to the report, a Home Office official said: “The home secretary and the department remain steadfast in our commitment to ensure that members of the Windrush generation receive every penny of compensation that they are entitled to.
“We continue to make improvements, such as simplifying the application process, hiring more caseworkers and removing the end date.”
Saddlers spill Guinness in Constituency #7 Domino League Best of the Rest eliminations
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, November 23, 2021 (MMS-SKN) — In hotly contested games at the elimination stage in the 26th edition of Constituency Number Seven Dr the Hon Timothy Harris Domino League on Monday November 22, two teams fell through the cracks and have lost the race for the top position in the Best of the Rest competition.
In the games that were played at the new Lodge-Ottley’s Community Centre, one of the two teams from Constituency Number Six taking part in the 14-team tournament, Saddlers Domino Club captained by Keith Eddy, return the best results by beating Guinness Domino Club 13-9.
The feat has given the team a bye in the next round of Best of the Rest competition playoffs which will continue tomorrow evening, Wednesday November 24.
In the second game of the evening, Unstoppable Domino Club captained by Samuel ‘Nokie’ Wilson lived up to its name by managing to stop Small Corner Bar Domino Club with a 13-11 beating.
According to the Constituency Number Seven Domino League’s PRO, Allington ‘Leggy’ Berridge, who is also the Captain of Phillips Domino Club, his team will play Unstoppable Domino Club tomorrow, November Wednesday 24. The winning team will meet Saddlers Domino Club, which received a bye, either on Thursday November 25 or on Monday November 29.
Constituency Number Seven Dr the Hon Timothy Harris Domino League, which is the longest running such league in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, is sponsored by Prime Minister and Area Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher Seven (Bellevue to Ottley’s), Dr the Hon Timothy Harris.
Second round in a best-of-three games semi-finals of the 26th edition of the league will take place tonight, Tuesday November 23, starting at 7:00 p.m. at the same venue. Former champion team Unity Domino Club will come up against Sylvers Domino Club, and defending champion team Tabernacle Domino Club will face Mansion Domino Club.
Unity Domino Club and Mansion Domino Club will come to the tables with an added advantage having won their first best-of-three games encounters. If they win, they will sail into the finals, but should either Tabernacle Domino Club and/or Sylvers Domino Club win tonight, it will call for a third game tiebreaker that will come into play on Thursday, November 25.
Stopping an opponent: Loinston Fahie of Unstoppable Domino Club in action as his team stopped Small Corner Bar Domino Club with a 13-11 beating.
Turkey’s liranose-dived nearly 9% after President Tayyip Erdogan defended recent sharp rate cuts and vowed to win his “economic war of independence” despite widespread criticism and pleas to reverse course.
Italy’s antitrust authority fined U.S. tech giants Amazon.com and Apple a total of more than $225 million for alleged anti-competitive cooperation in the sale of Apple and Beats products.
Facing scarce year-end inventories and a shortage of workers, retailers are turning ‘Black Friday’ into a month-long event. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said it had already started discounts, such as $30 off AirPods and KidKraft dollhouses.
A view shows the site where a bus caught fire on a highway, near the village of Bosnek, Bulgaria, November 23, 2021. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov
WORLD
A bus carrying North Macedonian tourists crashed in flames on a highway in western Bulgaria before daybreak, killing at least 45 people, including 12 children. The cause of the accident was unclear but the bus appeared to have hit a highway barrier either before or after it caught fire, officials said.
Germany’s health minister called for further restrictions to contain a “dramatic” surge in coronavirus cases as the country’s infection rate hit a record high and the United States advised against travel there.
The Myanmar shadow government said it raised $6.3 million on the opening day of its inaugural bonds sale, its biggest move yet to generate funds for its “revolution” to topple the ruling military junta.
Former South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan, whose iron-fisted rule of the country following a 1979 military coup sparked massive protests, died at the age of 90. A former military commander, Chun presided over the 1980 Gwangju army massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators.
The man accused of deliberately driving his car into a Christmas parade near Milwaukee, killing five people and injuring dozens, was out on bail from a domestic abuse case and was suspected in another violent altercation earlier that day, officials said.
President Joe Biden intends to run for re-election in 2024, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters. Biden, 79, has suffered a dip in his job- approval ratings in recent months, leading some Democrats to wonder whether he might not seek another four-year term.
The House of Representatives committee probing the deadly January 6 riot at the Capitol has issued subpoenas to Alex Jones, founder of the right-wing website Infowars, and Roger Stone, an ally of former President Donald Trump.
Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo engaged in “multiple instances of sexual harassment,” used state resources for a book and was “not fully transparent” on the number of COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes, state lawmakers said, summarizing the results of an investigation.
Assistant Secretary of State Todd Robinson has the daunting task of helping Haitians restore their collapsed security — so they can restore their collapsed country.
Sixty-three Haitian migrants arrived in the Florida Keys last week in a ramshackle sailboat after three weeks at sea. More will likely be coming — because on top of Haiti’s other grave crises, violent street gangs have now overrun much of the country.
This month, veteran U.S. diplomat Todd Robinson visited Haiti’s capital. On his way back to Washington, in Miami, he told WLRN that he saw that Haitian reality for himself in Port-au-Prince.
“There are large areas of the city that are frankly under different levels of gang influence,” said Robinson. “I think it’s going to be a real challenge [for] the Haitian National Police to reverse that trend.”
Gangs have been amassing power for years as the Haitian government has all but disappeared amid the chaos that followed the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
Today gangs control an estimated half of Port-au-Prince, hijacking fuel and kidnapping people for ransom at will. One of them, known as 400 Mawozo, is still holding 15 of the 17 U.S. and Canadian missionaries it abducted last month. Gang violence has forced thousands of Haitians from their homes this past year.
“Haiti is frankly in an unprecedented position,” Robinson said, pointing to the country’s economic implosion, a major earthquake on its southwest peninsula in August and the brutal, still unsolved assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July.
“We have to bring our ‘A’ game on this.”
Robinson — who recently became the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs — bears much of the daunting task of helping Haiti, and its national police, restore public security.
Over the past decade, the U.S. has sent more than $300 million to strengthen Haiti’s feeble law enforcement. On his trip this month, Robinson began delivering $15 million in new aid, including armored vehicles. But Haitian cops will need a lot more than that before they can, as Robinson put it, “take back their country.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “These are things we can achieve with the Haitian National Police, [but] it’s going to take a significant investment on the part of the United States and the international community.”
“We know political, economic, social elites are behind the scenes supporting these gangs. They should be on notice we’ll make it possible for the Haitian justice system to find out who they are,” Todd Robinson
How significant the Biden Administration hasn’t yet said. But the needs are urgent. For one, the U.N. reports gangs are now forcefully recruiting younger Haitians who, thanks to a dearth of economic opportunity, are especially vulnerable.
“Several of the young people we work with might tell you, ‘Oh, yeah, my [family’s] rent I have to pay,’” said Julio Warner Loiseau, who heads a youth assistance nonprofit in Port-au-Prince called Nouvelle Perspective.
“And if [my program] can’t find a job for them, the gangs can just give that money to them — and now they are in the gang!”
Haitian gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Cherizier in a Port-au-Prince slum last month.
Robinson says providing Haitian young people alternatives to gangs will be a key part of his mission — as it was for the U.S. when he was recently Ambassador to Guatemala, one of the countries in Central America where youths fleeing murderous gang recruitment migrate in droves to the U.S.
But Loiseau points out Robinson faces a serious dilemma — one security experts who know Haiti have warned about for years. That is, the gangs — including an alliance of criminal groups run by former Haitian cop Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, who is widely considered the most powerful person in Haiti right now — allegedly have ties to a lot of influential political and business leaders in Haiti.
“The system is so corrupt that a lot of the businessmen and the politicians need those gangs to protect their interests,” said Loiseau. “So a lot of the people Ambassador Robinson’s meeting in Haiti, they don’t want to fix the problem.”
That’s such an open secret in Haiti that Robinson just as openly acknowledged it in his conversation with WLRN.
“We know political, economic, social elites are behind the scenes supporting these gangs,” Robinson said.
“And they should be on notice that we’re going to make it possible for the Haitian justice system to find out who’s supporting them … and there will consequences.”
GUN RUNNING
But many Haitians believe working with Haiti’s current, weak justice system is a dead end.
When Robinson held a meeting with Haitian diaspora community leaders in Miami after his visit to Haiti, a key question they had was: Why doesn’t the U.S. itself identify and sanction, if not indict, corrupt elites in Haiti as aggressively as it has in Cuba, Venezuela or Nicaragua?
“The United States has at its disposal a lot of tools to stop the people who are driving this situation,” said diaspora leader Ariel Dominique, who was at the meeting.
“Whether it’s through the Justice Department, blocking visas, freezing assets, or to stop the flow of arms.”
There has indeed been a lot more smuggling of guns and bullets into Haiti recently — and that’s a big reason the gangs are thriving as monstrously as ever. Haitians like Loiseau insist ramped up arms interdiction has to be the U.S. and international priority right now.
Haitian National Police training in Port-au-Prince
Meanwhile, other Haitians — and some U.S. officials — fear it will take Washington far too long to help Haitian police restore order there. They suggest the only way Haiti can hold vital elections next year, or even the year after, is if U.S. and international troops provide voter protection.
Last month, Haitian Foreign Minister Claude Joseph told the U.N. the “new realities” of gang dominance may require it to return some of the international peacekeeping presence that had been in Haiti until recently.
But a lot of hemispheric security experts warn against putting boots on the ground.
“We have a horrible history with doing that,” said Brian Fonseca, who heads the Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University.
“Foreign intervention has undermined the evolution of the Haitian state. It’s held back true transition to democratic governance in Haiti.”
Robinson, the diplomat now heading the State Department’s mission to help Haiti rebuild its public security, shares that concern.
“We’ve tried interventions in the past,” he said, “and we are where we are.
“It’s up to the Haitians to take responsibility for their future.”
Even so, the U.S. is finding, once again, it can’t avoid its own responsibility to help Haiti reach that future.
POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron said violence in Guadeloupe over COVID-19 restrictions had created a “very explosive” situation, as a general strike entered a second week on Monday and many stores remained shuttered after nighttime looting.
Hours before Macron’s prime minister and lawmakers from the Caribbean archipelago were to hold crisis talks in Paris, there were signs of protests spreading to Martinique, another French overseas territory 190 km (120 miles) south of Guadeloupe.
Compulsory vaccination has touched a nerve in a population that is descended from slaves who worked on French sugar plantations and that during the 20th century was systematically exposed to toxic pesticides used in banana plantations.
“We are descendants of slaves, and for us, control over our bodies is really important,” said Pamela Obertan, 40, a political scientist in Guadeloupe who helped organize protests against vaccine requirements. “The government wants to impose a medical experiment. We are still medical experiments.”
Agriculture workers in Guadeloupe and Martinique were for decades exposed to a chemical pesticide called chlordecone. Macron has called it an “environmental scandal”, French media reported in 2018.
The toxic exposure has since then been linked to unusually high rates of prostate cancer on both islands.
Guadeloupe health workers had since July been protesting coronavirus vaccines mandates and writing letters to government officials without getting a response, said Obertan. By Nov. 15, some could no longer work because they had refused the vaccine.
Guadeloupe’s main city, Pointe-a-Pitre, was quiet on Monday, with burned out cars and debris still littering streets. Some shops remained shuttered, and schools closed due to the unrest.
Obertan said she and others had led peaceful protests, and did not support the acts of violence that had taken place.
France has deployed 200 extra police officers, including elite police commandos, to Guadeloupe to quell the unrest.
“We must explain, explain, explain and convince, convince, convince, because one must not play around with the peoples’ health,” Macron told reporters in northern France.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex on Monday described the situation in Guadeloupe as “worrying” and called for calm while also urging solidarity with the island’s people.
Local police have arrested several dozen people and food stores and pharmacies have been looted. French media reported on Sunday that rioters had broken into an arms depot in Pointe-a-Pitre and taken rifles.
“We just don’t know how far this will still go,” the mayor of Pointe-a-Pitre told France Info radio. He said there were “big worries” on the island now because rioters had guns.
In Martinique, roads around some of the main commercial and industrial zones were blocked by trucks at sunrise as unionised workers responded to a strike call, local media reported.
(Reporting by Ricardo Arduengo in Point-a-Pitre, Kate Chappell in Kingston, Tassilo Hummel and Richard Lough in Paris; Editing by Christian Lowe, Giles Elgood and Toby Chopra)
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
French police reinforcements monitor unrest over COVID restrictions in Guadeloupe
Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell says he does not believe legislating a mandatory vaccination policy for Grenada will help curb the spread of the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) and urged stakeholders, including the media, the private sector and trade unions to do more to get people to voluntarily accept vaccinations.
Grenada has since March last year, recorded 200 deaths and 5, 873 positive cases linked to the virus and Mitchell said people with influence, such as sporting icons and artists should lend their voice to the campaign.
“I believe that will be the best approach. People have been telling me to go to parliament and to force people (to get vaccinated). To tell you the truth if I thought that could work I would do it because I have no problem with it,” Mitchell said during a live new two-hour “conversation” with selected local journalists on Sunday.
He said in terms of whether or not that approach would be legal that would not have been a problem for his administration” because that has proven. The regional legal authorities have given us the green light in this matter.
“But I am not convinced it will work. If anything, you might get more resistance. What do you do? Put a bunch of 5,000 people who refuse to take the vaccine, put them in jail. What’s the point? If you are going to do something, you want to do something to achieve a result,” he said, adding that the measure should not be to ‘show that I have power and I could demand or command you to do this. People will just laugh at you”.
Mitchell said more people here should get involved in getting persons vaccinated adding that anyone entering this country would believe that “this is a government thing for government interest.
“I don’t believe as a country we have taken our responsibilities as serious as it is. I honestly believe the media could do a lot if anything, some parts of the media could be said to be guilty of doing the opposite.
“When I listen to certain things on certain stations it baffles me as if we don’t realise it is not about (the ruling) NNP (New National Party), it is not about the Prime Minister, it is not even about the Opposition Leader. It is about life and death and all of us should be on that wavelength.”
Mitchell said that the country has a ‘serious problem” saying “I have not heard enough (of the) business community speaking. Where are they? Is it the government that’s going to benefit directly when the businesses expand and the country is free up and more activities (take place)? The business sector has a lot to gain”.
He said while the government would receive taxes based on the improvement in the economy, he is also concerned about the silence of the local medical association.
“I hope people don’t get vex with me when I say this, to me I can only speak the truth. Where are they, where are the voices?…and then you have elements within them who are telling people they are not taking it and that’s a fact.
‘We have a problem there,” Mitchell said, adding also “I have not heard the trade union movement as a body come out and tell their workers you must get vaccinated”.
Loop- The Seismic Research Centre (SRC) at the St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) says it is monitoring the water levels at the Boiling Lake and they “have changed significantly in recent days”.
It noted however that the situation is not related to increased volcanic activity in the area.
In a statement, the Trinidad-based SRC said that it is a phenomenon that has occurred several times since 1876 and that a local tour guide visiting the Boiling Lake last week Thursday first reported unusual activity and water levels at the lake.
SRC scientists, who are currently conducting fieldwork in Dominica, will visit the lake on Monday to make further observations and measurements, if possible. They will be accompanied by staff of the Forestry, Wildlife & Parks Division,” the SRC added.
The Boiling Lake is a volcano-hydrothermal feature located in an area next to the Valley of Desolation in southern Dominica. The lake levels have dropped dramatically and been restored at least eight times in the past. The last draining episode occurred on November 8, 2016, with the lake returning to its normal state by January 10, 2017.
“The historical record, as well as the present-day volcano-monitoring network, suggests that the past episodes reflected local changes in the volcano-hydrothermal system. The observed changes in water levels and activity at the Boiling Lake are not necessarily related to increased volcanic activity in the area.
“However, during these episodes, harmful gases, such as carbon dioxide, can be released and small steam explosions may also occur. People should, therefore, avoid visiting the immediate area until the activity has subsided.”
The Valley of Desolation and the Boiling Lake itself are considered sites of interest for locals and visitors to Dominica. They have been part of the Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
The SRC monitors the Boiling Lake as part of its volcano monitoring programme in Dominica and updates the Office of Disaster Management (ODM) when significant changes are observed, the SRC added.
TAPACHULA, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Several thousand Haitian migrants on Monday clustered outside a stadium in southern Mexico that has been re-purposed into a migration office, urging authorities to let them pass freely through Mexico.
Two caravans of migrants largely from Haiti and Central America have departed from the southern city of Tapachula in recent weeks, many taking off on foot for the long journey in hopes of reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.
Thousands of people have also remained in Tapachula, close to the Guatemala border, where they are applying for refugee status and hope to receive visas to let them transit the country.
About 130,000 people will have requested asylum or protected status by year’s end, Mexico’s Interior Ministry projected on Monday. More than 50,000 of the 116,500 applications received so far this year were from Haitians, it added.
Migrants typically request asylum as a first step to receive a visa letting them travel freely within Mexico.
“We need documents to be able to move around here in Mexico,” said Haitian migrant Robinson, 31, who declined to give his last name, adding that fellow migrants who try to cross the country without a proper visa get sent back to Tapachula.
“It can’t be this way,” he said, speaking outside the stadium, where Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) has set up makeshift offices to handle a surge in demand.
INM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The rise in the number of Haitians trying to make their way through Mexico has been spurred by economic malaise, an earthquake and political turmoil following the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise in July.
The group outside the stadium in Tapachula on Monday also included Cuban and Venezuelan migrants.
About 100 kms (62 miles) away in the city of Mapastepec, a northbound migrant caravan with about 2,500 people, mostly from Haiti, took a break after walking since before dawn.
Loubens Narcisse said he hoped to land a visa more easily in another state of Mexico, even if he had to walk hundreds of kilometers.
“It’s not easy, but it can be done,” he said.
Reporting by Jose Torres in Tapachula and Jose Luis Gonzalez in Mapastepec; Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by Stephen Coates
SANTIAGO, Nov 22 (Reuters) – After years of divisive street protests and the election of a mainly left-wing body to rewrite the constitution, Chileans surprised analysts, markets and even themselves on Sunday night by favoring a right-wing presidential candidate and delivering significant gains to conservatives in Congress.
With 99.99% of votes counted as of Monday, ultra-conservative former congressman Jose Antonio Kast had won 27.91%, and leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric had come in second, with 25.83%. As both fell well short of the 50% threshold needed to win outright, they will now advance to a Dec. 19 runoff.
Kast, who has pledged to crack down on crime and illegal immigration, appears to have the momentum, though Boric can still eke out a victory if he wins over enough centrists, analysts said.
Still, the results of congressional elections may make the radical changes to Chile’s free-market model that Boric has promised out of reach. Leftist and center-left coalitions lost significant ground in both the upper and lower houses, and no coalition is expected to emerge with a functioning majority.
“It’s going to be very difficult for any of the two major coalitions in the Senate to pass legislation,” said Kenneth Bunker, head of political consultancy Tresquintos.
“For the conservative sectors, this is not a problem as they are in favor of the status quo, but for the opposition it is very bad news.”
Just six months ago, Chileans had favored left-wing independents when selecting representatives to the body charged with rewriting the nation’s dictatorship-era constitution. Boric, a 35-year-old who rose to fame leading student protests, has thrown his support behind the constitutional rewrite.
But crime fears, ongoing confrontations between police and separatist indigenous groups in the nation’s south and fatigue with continued protests and disorder in what is traditionally one of Latin America’s most stable countries likely played a role in the swing to the right, analysts said.
“What’s happening in the south, combined with crime and the general idea of change without really knowing what changes will be made caused a significant portion of the population to turn against Boric,” said Miguel Angel Lopez, a professor at the University of Chile.
While some recent opinion polls had shown Kast gaining ground, many Chileans and political observers did not expect him to do as well as he did, given the country’s leftward turn in recent years.
“It seems sad to me, sad after everything that has happened to the country,” Salvador Carrasco, a musician in central Santiago, said on Monday morning.
Chile’s benchmark IPSA equities index (.SPIPSA) was up over 10%, while the country’s peso currency gained ground against the dollar overnight.
The rally in the peso was due to relief that Congress was split, which will act as a moderating force if Boric wins, said Mary-Therese Barton, Head of Emerging Debt at Pictet Asset Management.
“Markets’ first reaction has certainly been positive. It’s less to do with the presidential side and more to do with Congress,” she said.
In the presidential runoff, eyes will now be on how successful both candidates will be at winning voters outside their traditional bases of support. Five failed candidates between them garnered some 46% of votes that are now up for grabs.
Perhaps the biggest mystery will be how those who voted for libertarian economist Franco Parisi will cast their votes. Parisi, who lives in Alabama and never set foot in Chile during the campaign, surprised many by finishing third with 12.8% of the vote.
“The Parisi voter is neither on the Left nor the Right,” said Guillermo Holzmann, a professor at the University of Valparaiso.
“This is a vote that will need a lot of analysis.”
Reporting by Gram Slattery, Natalia A. Ramos Miranda and Fabian Cambero, Additional reporting by Reuters TV, Editing by William Maclean and Rosalba O’Brien
Venezuela opposition says it must rebuild after heavy election loss
CARACAS, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition needs to rebuild and reflect on its strategy after suffering a heavy defeat in regional elections at the weekend, its leader Juan Guaido said on Monday, calling for unity among the fragmented movement’s leadership.
Venezuela’s ruling party won at least 18 governorships out of 23 states, according to updated election results published by the National Electoral Council (CNE) on Monday.
The electoral authority had earlier declared the ruling party victorious in 20 governorship elections. But close elections in Barinas and Apure states, which traditionally back the Socialist party, led the CNE to later say those results remained to be confirmed.
Opposition politicians have so far won just three states.
The main opposition parties had boycotted presidential elections in 2018 and congressional polls in 2020, arguing a fair ballot was impossible because of interference from President Nicolas Maduro’s government and violent gangs loyal to him.
But they returned to the ballot box this year amid frustration over the failure of U.S. sanctions to dislodge Maduro despite prolonged social and economic hardship.
Sunday’s vote was seen as a test of strength ahead of presidential elections scheduled for 2024. The opposition was also emboldened by the presence of election observers from the European Union.
A preliminary report from the mission is due on Tuesday, but there were no major reports of disruptions.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Maduro’s government of holding flawed elections that “skewed the process” to pre-determine the result in his party’s favor, citing harassment and bans of opposition candidates, voter roll manipulation, and censorship.
Guaido, the former speaker of Congress who is recognized by Washington and its allies as Venezuela’s rightful leader, said on Monday that the opposition needed to “rebuild itself” after the disappointing result.
“Today a new phase is opening,” he said, without providing specifics. “Today is a time for reflection amongst our leadership… It is not the time for fights nor egotism among political leaders.”
Analysts said ahead of the vote that the opposition’s late decision to participate and in-fighting over whether it should run candidates would damage its showing.
The opposition urgently needed to rethink its strategy in order to reconnect with voters and burnish its credibility, said Enderson Sequera, head of Venezuela’s Politiks consultancy.
“The conclusion of (Sunday’s vote) in Venezuela is very clear: Chavismo is more stable in power and the democratic opposition finds itself further from achieving political change,” Sequera said, referring to the nickname for the ruling party, once headed by the late President Hugo Chavez.
NEED TO REBUILD TRUST
Despite opposition efforts to galvanize voters at the last minute, turnout was relatively low at 41.8%, according to the CNE. That is equivalent to some 8.1 million people and is in line with previous local and regional elections. Low turnout in Venezuela favors the ruling Socialist party’s political machine, analysts say.
“The government has shown again that despite not having widespread popular support, it remains in power due to the lack of an opposition with a coordinated strategy,” said Maryhen Jimenez, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Latin American Centre.
After seeing living standards decline amid hyperinflation and a seven-year recession, many ordinary Venezuelans are disillusioned with politics. Millions of people have emigrated.
The ruling party saw supporter numbers drop to 3.7 million, according to CNE figures, from some 5.9 million votes in 2017 regional elections.
The oil-rich state of Zulia was won by opposition politician Manuel Rosales with 56.1% of the vote, who said it was clear that Venezuela’s opposition movement faced challenges.
“You can’t hide this crisis with complacent speeches,” Rosales, a lawyer and former presidential candidate, said on Monday in Maracaibo, Zulia’s capital.
The CNE has yet to announce victors in mayorship races – with the exception of capital Caracas, where the ruling party candidate won.
Maduro said on Sunday a return to negotiations in Mexico with the Venezuelan opposition would not take place until “the kidnap” of prominent government envoy Alex Saab – recently extradited to the United States on money laundering charges – is answered for.
The talks, begun in August, are meant to seek a way out of Venezuela’s economic and social crisis.
Guaido said he was cautiously optimistic the government would return to the table and he was discussing with international allies ways of increasing pressure on Maduro’s government.
Reporting by Vivian Sequera, Mayela Armas and Deisy Buitrago. Additional reporting by Mariela Nava in Maracaibo Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Oliver Griffin Editing by Daniel Flynn and Rosalba O’Brien
RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Residents on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro on Monday found the corpses of at least eight people in a mangrove after a sustained gunbattle with local police.
The bodies were found near a complex of slums called Salgueiro, in the city of Sao Goncalo, a poor and violent region that is part of metropolitan Rio.
Locals told media outlets that they believed other bodies would be found.
“The bodies were all thrown into a mangrove swamp, with signs of torture. They were tossed one on top of the other. This was clearly a massacre,” one resident told the G1 news website.
Other residents, who also declined to be named, gave similar accounts to other outlets.
The bodies were found after a weekend-long operation in the area, which began after a local police officer died while on patrol on Saturday. Sao Gonacalo is overseen by the 7th battalion, which has long been one of Rio state’s most deadly.
Rio’s military police did not respond to locals’ accusations of officers having been involved in torture or multiple killings but said in a statement: “So far, eight bodies have been found.”
Police said they had entered the region to “stabilize” it after violence from alleged drug gangs.
They said officers would remain in the area to allow civil police officers to investigate.
In 2019, Reuters reported on the shooting to death of a local resident by officers from the 7th amid a sharp rise in police killings. So far this year, officers from the 7th battalion killed 1,096 people, the highest of any battalion in the state, and up 17% from the first nine months of last year.
Reporting by Rodrigo Viga Gaier Writing and additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Alison Williams and David Gregorio
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