100 days ago, on October 17, 2023, with applause from the international community, the “Partial Agreement on the Promotion of Political Rights and Electoral Guarantees for All” was signed in Barbados, between the representatives of the regime and those of the Unitary Platform. from Venezuela. More than three months later, nothing has progressed.
A first attempt to suspend the elections was to create a situation of war, the hoax of war against Guyana Esequiba; The referendum shot backfired, the entire world reacted and Maduro quit. Who already remembers the territorial claim to Guyana?
In a new attempt to scrap the Barbados Agreement, the usurper of the Attorney General’s Office, Tarek Williams Saab, reveals without any proof military conspiracies and assassinations, which gives rise to Nicolás Maduro to announce the launch of Bolivarian fury and the UPAZ, Popular Units for Peace, who unleash a wave of harassment, persecution, prisoners and attacks, to later maintain from Miraflores, that the “Barbados Accords are in intensive care, mortally wounded, they were stabbed, kicked.”
For his part, the main negotiator for the regime and signatory of the Agreement, Jorge Rodríguez, says publicly: “free and fair elections? Never again”; Then, referring to María Corina Machado, he expresses, “there is no way for that woman to be a candidate for anything, in any election in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela”; adding, “this year there will be elections, with the Barbados Agreement or without the Barbados Agreement,” to finish by saying “The Barbados Agreement is icing on the cake without being a handle.”
The game is clear, Maduro does not want to compete in a fairly free election, because he would lose it, which leads the criminal regime, for the umpteenth time, to discover conspiracies and assassinations that it attributes to the democratic opposition, unleashing Bolivarian fury; Fury is anger against someone or something, which leads the enraged person to act on impulse and irrationally.
To say that they will not comply with the Barbados Agreement is to affirm that they do not abide by the Constitution and the laws, since it only contains what the Constitution says. The Agreement reads, “the parties commit to strengthening an inclusive democracy and a culture of tolerance,” agree to “recognize and respect the right of each political actor to select their candidates for the presidential elections freely and in accordance with its internal mechanisms, taking into account what is established in the Constitution.”
May I remind you that article 67 of our Magna Carta establishes that “popularly elected positions will be selected by the political parties in internal elections, with the participation of their members.” María Corina Machado was elected by a system that goes, in a positive way, beyond what is established in the letter of the Constitution, since her election as a candidate was made not by a partisan group, nor by the militancy of the democratic parties alone. opponents, it was an open process in which, despite all the sabotage of the dictatorship, two and a half million Venezuelans elected it. However, they try to ignore that legitimacy.
It is established in Barbados, “the presidential election will be held in the second half of 2024.” We note that even though we are already ending the first month of the year, the CNE has not called the election, has not set a date, nor published the electoral schedule. In this year 2024, a hundred countries in the world will hold elections, among others the United States and six Latin American countries, in all of them, logically, there is already an electoral schedule and date. And that of Venezuela? Fine, thanks.
The Barbados Agreement establishes the purification and updating of the electoral registry, “registration and update days in the country and abroad, as well as identification processes throughout the country.” In more than three months, nothing has been done, while 10 million Venezuelans must update or register in the registry, that includes five million voters abroad, of which only 2%, only 107 thousand, have registered. while in Venezuela there are three million young people who, in recent years, have come of age and have not been allowed to register, to whom are added two million voters who have changed their residence from one city to another, or from from state to state, and they are not allowed to register either. Can there be transparent elections if half of the voters cannot vote?
The Barbados Agreement contemplates “the invitation of technical electoral observation missions”, among others to the European Union, the UN and the Carter Center. No invitation has been made, and it is not that it is very early, because the invitation is not for them to attend as observers on election day, but for them to accompany the process; Surely they would have already observed and complained about the absence of an electoral schedule and updating of the registry, among many other points.
In Barbados, “the promotion of a discourse and climate favorable to a peaceful electoral process” was signed, while Maduro calls for the Bolivarian fury that attacks the headquarters of opposition organizations, persecutes, harasses and imprisons democratic leaders, despite the fact that in Barbados agreed to guarantee “security, freedom of movement and assembly.”
The aforementioned agreement literally reads, “Balance in the public and private media”, but the public media are exclusive to the criminal regime, and they continue to harass and persecute the private media, more than 3,500 media outlets are already closed, They issue arrest warrants against journalists, Sebastiana Barráez being the most recent.
Simultaneous to the Barbados Agreement, in Qatar the United States government and the Venezuelan regime reached an agreement to release prisoners and relax economic sanctions. Serious doubts arise about the legitimacy of that Agreement. The United States relaxed regulations, mainly in the oil field, and returned Maduro’s front man, the criminal Alex Saab. Maduro released a few unjustly detained political prisoners; We are happy for them and their families, but over the days the number of political prisoners in Venezuela has increased, thus increasing their “capital” for future exchanges.
Maduro already got what he wanted, now he declares Bolivarian fury and affirms that the Barbados Agreement is mortally wounded.
To do? There are tasks for us Venezuelans, those of us inside and outside the country, to stay on the democratic path, with firmer and more forceful actions.
There is also a task for the international community, which repeatedly insists that the way out of the Venezuelan crisis must be electoral. With all due respect, we demand from friendly countries something more than declarations and manifestations of good faith; Concrete pressure actions are needed, capable of moving the already evident and indubitable decision of the criminal regime to rule out free elections.
The invitation is not to cry or to cross our arms, saying again, they screwed us. No, the call is to fight firmly against the dictatorship. This is the year. After completing a quarter of a century of progressive and growing dictatorship, 2024 is the year of freedom.
Let’s go together. Let’s go everyone. As María Corina Machado said, we are going to the end.
Source: VENAMERICA
