2023-09-02 00:45:56
Local and international pressure is mounting against the autocratic regime of Venezuela to try to prevent the manipulation of next year’s elections in which the leader of Chavismo, Nicolás Maduro, will seek a new re-election.
A total of 72 non-governmental organizations and union and business associations from the Caribbean country demanded from the regime, through a statement, “guarantee the integrity of future electoral processes” and cease “the criminalization of dissident voices.”
Hours earlier, some twenty US senators, from the Democratic ruling party and the Republican opposition, sent a note to Foreign Minister Antony Blinken demanding actions for free play in next year’s general elections in Venezuela. They reproached the proscription of the main opposition leadersthe last of them, the liberal leader María Corina Machado.
Meanwhile, the civil organizations of Venezuela in their statement claim that “the persecution of the Venezuelan State through the criminalization of dissident voices must cease. It is the obligation of the State to direct its actions to guarantee the integrity of future electoral processes and prevent acts of electoral violence”.
María Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition outlawed by Chavismo. Photo: AFP
The message is signed by organizations from all over the country and disseminated by the Human Rights Center of the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB).
In the text, the State was urged to guarantee and respect, “without discrimination, the exercise of the rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and political participation of citizens, society actors and political parties ”.
The group expressed its concern about “the increase in acts of violence and intimidation in the pre-electoral phase” of events such as the opposition primaries on October 22, in which anti-Chavismo will elect the candidate to face the ruling party in the 2024 presidential elections.
Condemns the trade unionists
The denunciation of the NGOs and the banned political leaders also included the repression by the regime, which defines itself as socialist, of the union protests for wage improvements and in labor relations.
A paradigmatic fact of these abuses has been the sentence of 16 years in prison recently imposed on six trade unionists who were arrested between July 4 and 7, 2022 after leading several protests for wage increases.
They maintain that these penalties work as a warning to avoid questioning a system of high concentration of income with widespread poverty in most of the country. Days ago, the regime outlawed the Communist Party, a former ally of Chavismo, which denounced the extremely authoritarian turn with codes of civic-military dictatorship that Maduro himself has imposed on the system.
“We are facing a criminal regime that imprisoned six trade unionists who were protesting because all their collective bargaining was being blown up for 16 years in jail,” said former legislator and opposition candidate Machado.
The complaint also cited the acts of intimidation and harassment suffered by non-governmental organizations, in addition to the judicial intervention of civil associations such as the Venezuelan Red Cross and political parties that are taken over by alleged opponents appointed by the ruling party to participate in the elections.
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