It is known that a presidential election has been called in Venezuela for July 28. The international community has been reiterative in demanding an electoral and peaceful solution, expressing its desire to collaborate. The time has come to look at Venezuela, to put our eyes on what is happening there: a people taken to the streets for change and a regime whose only objective is continuity in power no matter what, cheating and trampling.
We speak to the international community: join us, look at Venezuela, we urgently require the presence of technical missions of electoral observers, so that the abuses and traps of the regime against the opposition cease or, at least, decrease.
The Barbados Agreements establish, in the “Electoral Guarantees for all Actors”, the “invitation to agreed technical electoral observation missions, including the European Union, the UN Panel of Electoral Experts, the African Union, the Inter-American Electoral Organizations and the Carter Center, for the purposes of observing the presidential electoral process…”
VenAmérica, in a recent public statement, asked: Where are the technical electoral observation missions of the Barbados Agreement? “Electoral observation is not supposed only for election day, July 28, since its mission is not only to witness the electoral event, no, it is about technical support and observation of the entire electoral process, throughout throughout the different steps of its schedule.”
Important violations and abuses have already occurred, without the presence of electoral observers, I mention only two: the first, in the registration of presidential candidates, the dictatorial regime violated the Barbados Agreement, by which “The Parties recognize and respect the right of each political actor to select his candidate”; The maneuvers of the CNE to prevent the opposition from determining its candidate are not secret, since Maduro wanted to select him for us, he did not succeed: although the candidate is not the leader María Corina, we registered Edmundo González who, to say the least, triples the vote intention of the failed continuity Nicolás Maduro.
The second point, now also in the past, is the Electoral Registry, to which 10 million Venezuelans who have not registered or who have not been able to relocate to where we are now aspired to enter; Of the 10 million, only 600,000 registered for the first time or relocated, leaving more than nine million of us out, in violation of the Barbados Agreement that establishes “Special registration and update days throughout the national territory, with the presence of witnesses of political actors”; None of that was done, it was an obstacle course for citizens not to register.
As for voters in the diaspora, of the five million who are abroad, only six thousand were able to register or relocate.
All of the above indicates that we are going to the elections with the regime’s rigged record that was not updated; However, the democratic opposition is going to win with this record, although we require that international observation prevent further traps and advantages.
VenAmérica has called on the international community to raise its voice alongside ours, to demand that technical electoral observation missions be formally invited by the National Electoral Council. We are waiting for them now, let’s prevent more advantages and arbitrariness, which increase at the same rate at which the fear of losing in Maduro and his group grows. www.venamerica.org.
Paciano Padrón*
*Former president of VenAmérica and director of the Venezuelan Citizen Movement in the World.
