Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia This Sunday he thanked the president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, for having the South American country “as an always present cause“, after the president expressed his hope that “soon” the anti-Chavista will join the Mercosur negotiating table as ruler of a “democratic Venezuela.”
“Grateful to you, President Mulino, for having Venezuela as an always present cause. “You understand perfectly the danger of not having peace in the region, your defense of our country, freedom and the return to democracy is the defense of a true democrat,” he wrote on the social network X.
Thanks from González Urrutia to Mulino
González Urrutia also thanked Panama, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru “for their commitment to democracy in the region.”
This group of nations signed on Saturday, on the sidelines of the Mercosur summit, a declaration that calls on Venezuela to “reestablish” the democratic order “by peaceful means.”
During his speech at the summit in Brazil, the Panamanian head of state recalled that the minutes of the elections of July 28, 2024, which, according to the Venezuelan opposition, give the victory of the presidential elections to González Urrutia, rest in custody in the National Bank of his country.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela, controlled by the ruling party, proclaimed the victory of Nicolás Maduro as re-elected president, without publishing the disaggregated results of this process.
Mulino He told his South American colleagues that he hopes “in due course” to be able to deliver the minutes “with a hug” to González Urrutia.“when he is already in power in a democratic Venezuela.”
In the opinion of the Panamanian president, “it is a shame” that a nation “full” of human and natural resources like Venezuela is suspended from Mercosur “for not respecting democratic principles.”
Mercosur
Venezuela joined Mercosur in 2012 but in December 2016 it was suspended because it failed to comply with some obligations of the alliance, an isolation that increased in August 2017, when the bloc applied a “political suspension” considering that “a serious breakdown of the democratic order occurred” in the country.
Mulino signed, together with his colleagues from Argentina, Javier Milei, and Paraguay, Santiago Peña, and authorities from Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru present at the Mercosur summit, the declaration in which They also ask to guarantee “unrestricted respect for human rights” in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado also thanked these six countries this Sunday for “their commitment to democracy and human rights” in the Caribbean country.
