Caracas.- The Venezuelan government on Sunday denounced an “intervention operation” against its presidential elections by a group of nine Latin American countries, in addition to what it calls “ultra-right political hitmen” from the region.
“Venezuela denounces and alerts the world about an intervention operation against the electoral process, our right to free self-determination and the sovereignty of our country, by a group of foreign governments and powers,” according to a statement, which points to Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Dominican Republic.
The Venezuelan government also accused former Colombian presidents Iván Duque and Andrés Pastrana, Argentina’s Mauricio Macri, and Costa Rica’s Óscar Arias, of being part of this alleged operation, as well as U.S. senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, whom it called “far-right hitmen politicians specialized in destabilizing governments in Latin America.”
According to the administration of Nicolás Maduro, “they intend to distort what was expressed” this Sunday “in peace and with a civic spirit” in the Caribbean country, when millions of Venezuelans went out to vote for one of the ten candidates for the Presidency, among them the current head of State, who is seeking a second re-election.
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“This miserable and desperate operation is destined to fail, because Venezuela is a free and sovereign country and will never accept impositions or blackmail, and even less so from foreign entities without morals and legality to attack our rights and our people,” Caracas added.
The Venezuelan government issued this statement five hours after the closing of the polling stations, when the Caribbean nation expects an imminent pronouncement from the National Electoral Council (CNE) on the results of the elections, in which the standard-bearer of the main opposition coalition – the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) – Edmundo González Urrutia also competed.
