Caracas residents celebrate the liberation of Juan Requesens, on August 28. MANAURE QUINTERO / Reuters
Less than 100 days before the parliamentary elections, Nicolás Maduro has decided to grant clemency to dozens of persecuted political prisoners and deputies.
"The intention is to deepen the process of national reconciliation in the face of the next electoral process," said the Minister of Communication, Jorge Rodríguez, who read the presidential decree of pardon in a television broadcast.
Among those favored are parliamentarians who are refugees in embassies or in exile, such as Freddy Guevara or Miguel Pizarro;
the right hand of Juan Guaidó, Roberto Marrera or the political scientist Nicmer Evans.
The release would be a concession for the December 6 elections and part of the negotiations that the Government has with a sector of the opposition led by Henrique Capriles, a two-time presidential candidate.
"The only reason for not participating in the December 6 elections is because your plan is different from settling things through democracy," Rodríguez reiterated.
Among the beneficiaries of the measure are several parliamentarians refugees in embassies or in exile on whom judicial proceedings were initiated violating their immunity, such as Freddy Guevara, Mariela Magallanes, Freddy Superlano, Américo De Graza, Carlos Lozano, Jorge Millán, José Guerra, Richard Blanco, Tomás Guanipa, Luis Stefanelli, Carlos Paparoni, Miguel Pizarro, Juan Andrés Mijía, Rafael Guzmán, Franco Casella, Juan Pablo García, Winston Flores, José Simón Calzadilla, Henry Ramos Allup, Edgar Zambrano, Luis Florido and Juan Pablo Guanipa.
Also included were Gilber Caro, Ismael León and Renzo Prieto currently in prison and other leaders such as Roberto Marrero, Juan Guaidó's right-hand man, the political scientist Nicmer Evans, led by intelligence agencies last month, and the activist Vasco Da Costa , imprisoned for two years
The pardon comes in the midst of a whirlwind in the opposition on the ways to face the parliamentarians, to which the group that gathers around Guaidó has announced that it will not participate.
To these, other leaderships such as Henrique Capriles' has raised the need to take advantage of the electoral event to mobilize the population and last weekend he participated in the efforts that put deputy Juan Requesens, imprisoned for more than two years, in jail No judgment.
The list of pardons does not include some names such as the deputy Julio Borges, in exile in Colombia, the former mayor David Smolansky and the hundreds of soldiers prosecuted for alleged conspiracies against the government.
Maduro had announced on Sunday that he was preparing for a decree to move towards a deep dialogue with different sectors "without revenge."
"Next week will be interesting, of dialogue, reconciliation, reunion and broader guarantees for the democratic political life of the country and the elections of December 6," she said, alluding to the upcoming parliamentary elections.