Former Argentine President Alberto Fernández, an ally of Nicolás Maduro during his administration, described the Venezuelan government’s request as “unusual.” He said he considered it appropriate not to travel to the country to avoid “being accused of wanting to cloud a crucial election day.”
Former Argentine President Alberto Fernández announced on Wednesday afternoon the 24th that the government of Nicolás Maduro has banned him from participating as an international observer in the presidential elections on Sunday, July 28.
“The reason given to me is that, in the opinion of that government, public statements made by me to a national media outlet caused discomfort and raised doubts about my impartiality. They understood that the coincidence with what the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had expressed the day before, generated a kind of destabilization of the electoral process,” Fernández said in a statement. message posted on his social networks, where he also posted the letter sent by the CNE.
He described the Venezuelan government’s request, which he was informed of on Tuesday, July 23, as “unusual.” He mentioned that he considered it appropriate not to travel to the country to avoid “being accused of wanting to cloud a crucial election day, when I was only trying to fulfill the task of an electoral observer.”
*Read also: Alberto Fernández: Nicolás Maduro “has to accept” if he is defeated in the elections
According to the former Argentine president, the anger expressed by Maduro’s government is incomprehensible. “I only said that in a democracy, when the people cast their vote, ‘the one who wins, wins and the one who loses, loses’ and if the government were eventually defeated, it should accept the popular verdict. The opposition should do the same if the result were unfavorable to it.”
He also recalled that the role of electoral observers is to monitor “compliance with the established rules throughout the electoral process, in an objective, impartial and transparent manner. That was my only purpose. I would have liked to be able to do so, but I feel that in the context created I will not be able to fully fulfill that task.”
Alberto Fernández, who was an ally of Maduro’s government during his administration (2019-2023), said that Venezuela has been “besieged by threats of invasion and its economy hurt” by international sanctions. He also hopes that the presidential elections can be held “in a transparent manner and that the popular verdict is respected whatever the result.”
“If this objective is achieved, the Venezuelan people will recover democratic coexistence and the millions of Venezuelans who had to emigrate will be able to return to the wonderful land where they were born,” he reiterated.
Post Views: 103
