NIn a letter addressed to both presidents, the former leaders of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA) recalled the limitations imposed by the Venezuelan electoral authorities throughout the “mined” process that ended with last Sunday’s elections.
They highlighted that although the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) declared the current president, Nicolás Maduro, the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, and the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, made public 81% of the voting records, according to which the winner of the elections would be González Urrutia with 67% of the votes, compared to the 30% obtained by Maduro.
“The only thing that can be done is to recognize the status of Edmundo González Urrutia as president-elect of Venezuela, after verification by international electoral technical bodies,” argue the former presidents.
The former presidents described the Venezuelan government’s behavior as “serious” as “repression, with deaths, injuries, arrests and disappearances, of its people, who only demand respect for their sovereign will.”
They also regretted that the Maduro government had ordered the “arrest of the elected President and the leader Machado who supports him.”
The presidents stressed that this is not just a dilemma about possible electoral fraud or a pending ballot, but “an act or behavior that, in a flagrant and shameless way, destroys and disrespects the constitutional and legal order through a serious alteration of democracy.”
They ask Lula and Petro to understand that, if this precedent is accepted, it will set an example that will affect all democracies in the region.
Among the signatories of the letter are former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso and Bolivian Jorge Tuto Quiroga, who were prevented by Venezuelan authorities from flying from Panama to Caracas, where they intended to participate as electoral observers in last Sunday’s elections.
I also signed letters to Mario Abdo, Federico Franco and Juan Carlos Wasmosy (Paraguay); Jose Maria Aznar and Mariano Rajoy (Spain); Nicholas Ardito Barletta and Ernesto Perez Balladares (Panama); Felipe Calderon and Vicente Fox (Mexico) and Ivan Duque, Andres Pastrana and Alvaro Uribe (Colombia).
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (Chile); Osvaldo Hurtado, Guillermo Lasso, Jamil Mahuad and Lenin Moreno (Ecuador); Luis Alberto Lacalle H. (Uruguay); Mauricio Macri (Argentina); Hipólito Mejia (Dominican Republic); Carlos Mesa G. (Bolivia); Alfredo Cristiani (El Salvador); and Óscar Arias, Rafael Ángel Calderón, José María Figueres, Miguel Ángel Rodriguez and Luis Guillermo Solís R. (Costa Rica), also signed the declaration.
Read Also: Guterres calls for disputes in Venezuela to be resolved “by peaceful means”
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Source: https://www.noticiasaominuto.com/mundo/2609438/ex-presidentes-pedem-que-lula-e-petro-reconhecam-urrutia-como-presidente
