SAN SALVADOR.- The Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA) party of The Savior expressed its strongest condemnation of the regime’s decision Nicolas Maduro to prevent the entry into Venezuela of a delegation of former presidents of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA) to monitor the presidential elections this Sunday.
According to ARENA, this action constitutes a “clear violation of democratic principles” and an “attack on the freedom of international observation” in an election where the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, backed by María Corina Machado, shows a wide popular advantage over the dictator Maduro.
On Friday, the Maduro regime blocked access to the IDEA observer mission, made up of former presidents Mireya Moscoso of Panama, Jorge Tuto Quiroga of Bolivia, Vicente Fox of Mexico and former vice president Marta Lucía Ramírez of Colombia. The former presidents were on a Copa Airlines flight from Panama to Caracas when they were forced to get off the plane.
“They got us off amidst the applause of the people on the plane who even wanted us not to get off, but the Maduro regime determined that if we did not do so, they would not allow the takeoff of that flight, another one that was leaving Panama for Valencia and another one that was coming from Caracas to Panama,” Quiroga said in a video released.
ARENA reiterated its solidarity with the Venezuelan people and demanded that the Maduro regime respect freedoms, allow the entry of international observers and guarantee a transparent and equitable electoral process.
The IDEA group, made up of more than thirty former heads of state and government of Spain and Latin America, is an organization committed to defending democracy and promoting free and fair elections, in accordance with the provisions of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
The former presidents have denounced the growing repression and the lack of guarantees for a free and fair presidential election in Venezuela, highlighting the continued violation of fundamental rights under the current regime.
