Nicolás Maduro said at the VIII Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) that there will be elections during the second half of 2024. The date is the one established in the Barbados agreements and the commitment to hold them was made before his by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reported the Brazilian Presidency, with whom he held a bilateral meeting within the summit.
Maduro affirmed that in 2024 there will be “absolutely reliable and transparent elections” in Venezuela.
The National Electoral Council is the one who must, according to Venezuelan legislation, call elections in Venezuela and has not yet taken that step.
Chavismo mobilized allied sectors to propose various schedules to carry out the elections and this Friday it delivered a document with 27 possible dates, proposed based on different criteria.
The president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, acknowledged receipt of the proposals and said that they would begin to analyze them.
Technically, electoral specialists have warned, at least six months are needed from the call to the date of the elections.
“Venezuela this year is going to its 31st election in 25 years.
I believe that Venezuela has one of the highest rates of electoral and consultative processes in the electoral history of the last three decades on our continent and I believe in the world.
Whenever it has been necessary, according to the Constitution, elections have been held,” he said.
The conditions under which the last presidential elections were held in Venezuela, held in May 2018, on an early date by decision of Maduro himself and with a large part of the opposition candidates out of competition due to disqualifications and without qualified international observation missions, led to the Chavismo opened a hole in the legitimacy of the re-elected Government, after the decision of several democracies in the world not to recognize a process considered flawed.
Maduro has asked CELAC and also the United Nations Organization - whose Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, was present at the summit - to send their observation missions, despite the fact that days ago he expelled the teams from the High Commissioner's office. of Human Rights.
"Venezuela is preparing for absolutely reliable, transparent elections, with an electoral system that I would like Celac to know about and be able to disseminate beyond manipulation, misrepresentation and lies."
Maduro has found in CELAC a space to recover international dialogue, after several years of isolation due to the country's authoritarian drift.
And Lula Da Silva has been a mediator in the latest diplomatic crossings between Venezuela and its Guyana neighbor through the Essequibo.
In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, headquarters of the pro tempore presidency of CELAC, they met in December to de-escalate the conflict generated after the referendum called by Venezuela to approve the annexation of the disputed territory.
There they agreed not to threaten each other or use force to resolve the dispute, although days later there were mobilizations of troops and military equipment on the border.
In that country, the exchange of prisoners with the United States was also completed as part of the direct negotiations between Caracas and Washington.
In the Caribbean island country, Colombian businessman Alex Saab, who was being prosecuted for alleged money laundering from the corruption of the Venezuelan Government, was handed over to Venezuela and has now been named an official in Maduro's cabinet.
The date of the elections has become a crucial issue within the latest steps reached in the negotiations between the Venezuelan Government and the opposition.
But several agreements prior to the elections have collapsed in recent months in which Chavismo has increased the persecution of dissidence - with the arrest of activists and political leaders - and has decided to block the candidacy of the main opposition leader, María Corina Machado, through a ruling from the Supreme Court, which has gone beyond constitutional precepts.
Chavismo sets up elections in which it cannot lose, although 85% of Venezuelans want a change of government and Maduro has a reduced popular approval that does not exceed 20%.
The meeting between Lula and Maduro, according to the Brazilian Presidency, also touched on the issue of Guyana, where the Brazilian president made a stop before attending the summit, as well as the million-dollar debt that Venezuela has with Brazil, the intensification of trade between the two countries and the joint fight against illegal mining in the Yanomami indigenous territory, on both sides of the border.
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