Antonio Ledezma criticized the sending of an EU observation mission to Venezuela: “In the dictatorship, there are no free elections”

Antonio Ledezma on Sunday rejected the election observation mission that the European Union (EU) will send to Venezuela by declaring that “in dictatorship and tyranny there are no free elections”. In this sense, he urged that the “rags” on the “appalling catastrophe” facing the South American country cease.

The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, the Spaniard Josep Borrell, announced on September 29 the decision to send a mission to the regional and local elections to be held in Venezuela on November 21.

In a statement, Borrell was “convinced” that his work “It will be an important contribution to a peaceful solution controlled by the Venezuelans”, as well as “a path to credible, inclusive and transparent elections”.

Ledezma, former mayor of Caracas and exile in Spain, disagreed with this approach in statements to the agency EFE. “If you want to spend that expense and that effort to go to Venezuela, go see how human beings continue to be extrajudicially executed, go see what the queues look like for everything: gasoline, food, medicine. Go see how that country, which was very rich, now its currency is no longer worth anything. “

Before the courts, “those responsible for crimes against humanity are flattered”, he added, before asking that clues be sought on “how are the relations of this regime (of President Nicolás Maduro) with trafficking of drugs and international terrorism “.

For all that, “It’s time for the UN, the OAS or the European Union to show they are good at something”underlined the leader of the opposition, a former political prisoner of the dictatorship of Maduro.

Venezuela, according to Ledezma, needs the solidarity of the international community, “it urgently needs effective declarations and actions, no more hot towels, no more guaraneo, no more balancing of the barriers of international organizations to be the distant witnesses of a massacre that is carried out continuously ”.

The adversary Leopoldo López, also in exile in Spain, said yesterday on his Twitter account that it was “dangerous” for Europe to lend itself to “legitimizing” Maduro by sending an observation mission to Venezuela.

“We must be vigilant in the accomplishment of the mission, that those who make up the said mission do not lend themselves to the manipulation of the dictatorship,” he warned.

His father, the Spanish-Venezuelan MEP Leopoldo Lopez Gil He described this European election observation mission as “undesirable” last Thursday.

He also assured that the initiative of the European Union caused him “a lot of surprise” because Borrell “This shows that the conditions for holding these elections are not completely clear or transparent”: “If these conditions did not arise, how is it possible that we are authorizing an observation mission at this time?”

For his part, he demanded that the report of the exploration mission authorized months ago by Borrell and the EU’s foreign service be made “public”, “which we still do not know”. “If we had technical knowledge of the fact-finding mission report,” he argued, “we could see whether or not these conditions are met” for free elections.

After criticism, the European Union clarified last week that its demands on the Venezuelan regime to overcome the political crisis in the country “had not changed”, despite sending an election observation mission to the elections local and regional.

“In no case has our policy towards Venezuela changed. You must understand that observing the elections in Venezuela does not mean that we have changed our policy towards Venezuela and our demands towards that country “said the spokesperson for the European External Action Service, Nabila Massrali.

Among these demands is the reform of the National Electoral Council (CNE) so that it is not controlled by supporters of dictator Maduro.

According to Borrell, the elections will be “An unprecedented electoral process, with the participation of the majority of political forces, for the first time in recent years.”

The majority of the Venezuelan opposition, including the sector it leads, will participate in the November 21 elections for the first time since 2017. Juan Guaido, after asking for abstention in the presidential elections of 2018, in which Nicolás Maduro was re-elected, and of the parliamentarians of 2020, where Chavismo obtained 92% of the deputies in the running.

The European Union did not recognize the elections of December 6 last year because it considered that they did not meet international democratic standards.

With information from EFE

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