Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has announced he will seek a third 6-year term as president. But so far there is nothing to suggest that the vote scheduled for July will be free or fair. Indeed, President Maduro and his representatives have detained two members of the leading opposition candidate’s campaign and issued warrants for seven others.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, 56, won an opposition primary vote overwhelmingly last year. But she was declared ineligible and banned from public office for 15 years by courts loyal to Maduro on spurious charges of corruption. Machado nevertheless kept campaigning, and recently named 80-year-old university professor Corina Yoris as her replacement. But the opposition coalition said its bid to register Yoris was unsuccessful.
This “represents a disturbing escalation of repression against Venezuela’s opposition parties,” declared State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement.
To date, 10 candidates have registered to compete in the July elections, none of them connected to the main opposition coalition and several seen as representing little threat to Maduro’s power base.
These actions along with the arrest of numerous other opposition and civil society members this year, as well as continued disqualification of candidates, undermine the possibility of competitive elections. “We join our international partners and the Venezuelan people in calling for an end to the harassment campaign targeted at Venezuelans engaged in peaceful political activity,” said spokesperson Miller.
To guarantee a democratic election that meets the expectations of the Venezuelan people, Maduro and his representatives must follow through on the commitments they made in Barbados in October 2023, stressed Mr. Miller. “We continue to call for the immediate release of all political prisoners and the return of the UN Human Rights Office to Caracas,” he said.
“We will continue to support Venezuelans’ aspiration for a more democratic, stable, and prosperous Venezuela,” said spokesperson Miller. “We will also work with our partners to uphold the democratic process as it offers the best hope to address Venezuela’s ongoing political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.”
