SAN LUIS POTOSÍ, Mexico.- The Cuban-American Congressmen from FloridaMaría Elvira Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez, urged the administration of President Joe Biden to condemn the Nicolás Maduro regime and reimpose sanctions against it, amid allegations of irregularities in the elections, where the National Electoral Council awarded the victory to the Chavista.
In a missivesent this Monday, July 29, and addressed to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the American politicians demanded that the actions of the Maduro regime regarding the “elections” of July 28, 2024 in Venezuela be condemned.
“Swiftly impose broad and robust sanctions on the regime, as well as targeted sanctions on individuals responsible for subverting the democratic system that Venezuela once had,” they wrote, following the Venezuelan elections that have taken place in a tense political climate and amid irregularities in the counting of votes.
The three signatories of the letter recalled that the Maduro regime came to power after the death of Hugo Chávez, and after an election in 2018 that was “neither free nor fair.”
At the time, the European Union and the Council of the European Union, the Organization of American States, the Lima Group and several other countries, including the United States, refused to recognize the results after an escalating crackdown that included intimidating the opposition, refusing to allow certain candidates to run and censoring the media.
Against this backdrop, Chavez’s followers declared themselves the winners, and now, in a similar way, history is repeating itself.
“The leading opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, who won a decisive primary, was barred from running and her chosen successor, Corina Yoris, was also excluded. The ‘Barbados Agreement,’ which the opposition’s Unitary Platform and the Maduro regime signed in October 2023, and which was facilitated by his Administration with sanctions relief on Venezuela’s lucrative gold and oil industries, was flagrantly violated by the Maduro regime which continued to harass, intimidate and imprison opposition members. Negotiations leading up to the agreement bought the Maduro regime valuable time – as ‘dialogue’ with tyrants typically does – and misled many into believing that the upcoming elections could be free and fair,” they argued.
Re-imposing sanctions against the regime could force Maduro and his henchmen to step down from the power they have claimed for themselves.
“The Venezuelan people deserve more than the failed tyranny of the Maduro dictatorship, including a fair count of their votes, and an electoral process free of intimidation that allows their chosen candidates to run freely.”
“Accordingly, and within all applicable rules and regulations, we respectfully request that you stand in solidarity with the Venezuelan people and impose severe sanctions on the Maduro regime, as well as on the individuals responsible for circumventing the will of the Venezuelan people throughout the 2023-2024 campaign,” they concluded.
Early this Monday morning, the president of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela advertisement Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential elections, granting him a third term with 51.2% of the votes. In light of these results, María Elvira Salazar, Marco Rubio and Carlos Giménez spoke out against what they described as electoral fraud.
Maria Elvira Salazarvisibly outraged, expressed her categorical rejection of the results: “Shamelessly, Maduro is once again trying to steal the elections. It is an insult to the Venezuelan people. Congress will denounce him. The White House will denounce him. The International Community will denounce him. It will not be so easy this time. He will not be able to sustain this aggression.”
Venezuelan opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez On Monday afternoon, they addressed the public to inform them that, after verifying the records, they had counted 73% of the votes in favour of González.
In a transmission Live, Machado revealed that, after hours of uninterrupted work, with witnesses, coordinators, and digitizers of the minutes, they confirmed that the victory is for González, with 6.2 million votes in his favor, and only 2.7 million for Nicolás Maduro.
The Chavistas, on the other hand, refuse to recognize other results and have launched a campaign of persecution and discredit against the opposition.
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