MIAMI.- US Senator Marco Rubio said that Nicolás Maduro will never agree to hold an election that he will lose because “he knows that would happen and he will not allow it.”
The Republican legislator for the state of Florida emphasized that “Maduro is not going to agree to an election that is fair, democratic and free. He cannot win that election and he knows it.”
Regarding the signs of the exhaustion of his leadership in Venezuela, the recent survey by the public opinion company Delphos reveals that Maduro barely has support of less than 10%, reflecting a marked rejection of his regime, which poses a significant challenge for the dictator. , whose permanence in power has been affected by a decade of economic crisis, institutional deterioration and international criticism, reports Semana Magazine
For Rubio, we are in the presence of something similar to what is experienced in Nicaragua with the regime of the Sandinista Daniel Ortega. That is, in his opinion, any opponent who can beat Maduro will not allow him to participate in the contest.
The senator believes that Maduro is seeking to create an “official opposition” because he knows that he is going to lose, that he offers himself as a figure that opposes him to have influence, even if they do not have power. “This is so that Maduro can tell the international community: Here there is an opposition with a candidate, but, anyway, I won.”
Given this reflection, Rubio recalled that he asked the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, in a public hearing if after what happened with María Corina Machado they considered that a violation of the Barbados agreement “and he has not answered me. I think it is obvious that it is a violation and we will continue to see that this is the reality.”
No hope for a real election in Venezuela
“I have no hope that the elections in Venezuela are real and I have even less hope that this administration has the will to act on this issue in the appropriate manner,” the Republican stressed in an interview with NTN24.
When asked about the “soft position of the Biden administration and the Barbados Agreements,” he indicated that “the current US government has no will to enforce them. I think he is now looking to get rid of that problem. With a White House that is full of people, who to some extent sympathize with the ideology of the people who control that regime.”
Hostages to “negotiate”
When asked by the media “about the embarrassing pardon of the front man of Nicolás Maduro’s drug-dictator, Alex Saab, by President Biden,” Rubio did not hesitate to point out: “this (Biden’s) administration is a disgrace.”
“Here we all want Americans who are unjustly imprisoned in Venezuela to be released. What happens is this: When we make these exchanges like in the case of Alex Saab, what you are doing is simply creating a market to arrest people from this country. At this moment, we know that one of the things that Maduro is going to do in the future, without having conflicts with the US, is to arrest five or ten Americans and use them for a negotiation. That is the first message that is sent. Also, an incentive is created to arrest and persecute Americans abroad.”
A wrong message from Biden
Rubio believes that the actions of the Biden administration are sending the wrong message to the enemies of the United States. “When you are an enemy of the US you can get concessions from Joe Biden. When you are a friend we are going to sanction you, we are going to criticize you, we are going to take actions against you. But, if you are an enemy of the US then you will be able to negotiate. We are going to have concessions with you. “It is a very dangerous message for our allies and also a very dangerous incentive for our enemies,” he noted.
For a greater understanding of his arguments, Rubio indicated that for the first time in 25 years, the Salvadoran people can go out into the streets at night and a merchant no longer has to pay the tax that criminal gangs charged him, which he qualifies as a fact. extraordinary “thanks to a president who had to take extraordinary actions to restore order.”
However, “this administration criticizes and attacks Bukele in El Salvador, who wants to be a friend of the US, who wants to be an ally and who had a very good relationship with the Trump Administration. This administration mistreats not only Bukele, but the Dominican Republic, and other countries in the region. He treats them worse than they treat the regime in Cuba, for example, or the Maduro regime. That is the message that Biden is sending: it is better to be like Maduro or Daniel Ortega than to be a friend, an ally, of the United States.”
Regarding “the sanctions on the narco-regime that the Biden government lifted,” the politician confirmed in the interview that he will continue to press as much as possible in his opposition role in the US Congress.
“We Republicans are not the majority in the Senate but I am going to continue pressing, asking, exposing and doing everything possible so that the public sees the reality of the agreements that the Biden government is reaching.”
Source: NTN24
