WASHINGTON.- US senators Marco Rubio, Dick Durbin, Bill Cassidy y Ben Cardin issued a joint statement stating that Nicolas Maduro“is afraid” of facing the opponent Maria Corina Machado in truly democratic elections.
In their statement, the senators referred to the recent announcement regarding the date of the presidential elections in Venezuela and the ban imposed on the opposition María Corina Machado to run as a candidate
Rubio, Durbin, Cassidy and Cardin argued that the Venezuelan institutions are not capable of managing free elections at the same time that Maduro selected those in charge of directing the electoral processes, in reference to the National Electoral Council (CNE). In this context, they urged the international community and the United States to understand the reality of the South American country.
“The US and the international community must recognize the stark reality about Maduro’s criminal regime and the recently announced elections: Venezuela’s institutions are currently incapable – by design – of having free, fair and democratic elections while drug traffickers’ henchmen dictator who were carefully selected by Maduro direct all aspects of the process, including the National Electoral Council (CNE),” they noted in the text of the statement.
This week, the CNE announced that the presidential elections will be held on July 28 of this year, while the political disqualification against the candidate María Corina Machado is maintained, which prevents her from registering in the race.
Machado overwhelmingly won the opposition primary elections that were held in October 2023, in which he managed to gather 92% of the votes. Those opposition primaries managed to attract 2.5 million Venezuelans. Machado thus became the “unitary” candidate of the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform. By preventing him from participating, Maduro makes elections vulnerable, losing all competitiveness.
Although Machado is not the only opposition member who has expressed her intention to be a candidate, there is, until now, no option that can bring together the same voting intention and leadership in a Venezuela that demands immediate political change. On the contrary, Maduro ensures that he has opponents tailored to him.
“While the Venezuelan dictatorship arbitrarily determines who can or cannot run, in the so-called elections the result will simply favor Maduro. Opposition candidate María Corina Machado, whom the majority of voters in Venezuela’s primaries chose as their candidate, has currently prohibited from running in the presidential elections for the simple reason that Maduro is afraid of confronting her in a truly democratic process. “He knows that Venezuelans overwhelmingly voted for her in their collective struggle to have a life free of tyranny,” the senators noted in their statement.
Last October, after negotiating representatives of the Maduro regime and the opposition signed an agreement in Barbados through which Maduro committed to guaranteeing free and transparent presidential elections, the US proceeded to relax some of the sanctions it had imposed on the oil sector. and gas of Venezuela. This is how he authorized the oil company Chevron to restart operations in the Caribbean country.
However, from October to date, the regime has continued with its authoritarian practices that violate Venezuelan laws. Intimidation and persecution of dissidence persists in Venezuela. Likewise, Machado was denied the possibility of facing Maduro in the presidential elections when he was denied an injunction that he introduced, at the initiative of the regime itself, before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) requesting the deactivation of the political disqualification.
The latter caused the US to warn at the end of January that if the regime does not comply with the provisions of the Agreement signed in Barbados, the relief of sanctions will be reversed.
In that sense, the senators considered that “the US should reimpose oil sanctions and refuse to recognize any electoral ‘winner’ of a process that excludes the opposition candidate democratically elected by the Venezuelan people, María Corina Machado.”
Source: WRITING
