July 28, 2024, 11:41 AM
July 28, 2024, 11:41 AM
The governments of the Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica and Ecuador said on Sunday that “the will of the Venezuelan people (…) must be respected,” in a joint statement issued when the presidential elections in Venezuela.
“In light of Nicolás Maduro’s statements about the possibility of a ‘bloodbath’ if the government loses the elections, we repeat our call to the Venezuelan authorities to comply with the Inter-American Democratic Charter“said a statement from the Alliance for Development in Democracy (ADD), which is made up of the four countries.
The members of the ADD added in the statement, released by the Panamanian Foreign Ministry, that in the elections “the will of the Venezuelan people, the foundation of democracy, must be respected.”
The four nations also called for “guaranteeing” free, fair and transparent elections.
The ADD rejected the actions of the Venezuelan government that “limit access to international observers” to verify the electoral process, in particular the ban on entry of several former Latin American presidents last Friday.
That day, Venezuelan authorities prevented four former presidents from traveling to Caracas together from Panama.
A Panamanian Copa Airlines flight carrying four former presidents to Venezuela was unable to take off from Tocumen Airport “due to the blockade of Venezuelan airspace,” Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said on his X account.
The group included former presidents Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (Costa Rica), Jorge Quiroga (Bolivia), Vicente Fox (Mexico) and Mireya Moscoso (Panama), who are members of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas, a forum of right-wing former rulers.
This Sunday, the ADD called on Venezuelans “to turn out en masse to vote.”
“For the Venezuelan election to be legitimate, it must be a transparent reflection of the popular will freely expressed at the polls,” the four nations said.
