Ten days before the presidential elections in Venezuela, the country faces a climate of maximum tension. This Wednesday, the governments of Panama, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Ecuador expressed their support for the elections that will take place on July 28 in Venezuela through an official statement. In this statement, the member countries of the Alliance for Development in Democracy (ADD) call on the Venezuelan authorities to comply with the Inter-American Democratic Charter and act in line with the objectives of the Barbados agreements. This, in search of democratic stability, sustainable development and social peace in the country.
“We therefore reiterate our call for free, fair and transparent elections to be held in Venezuela on July 28, with the support of recognized international organizations and in a climate of peace and full respect for the rights of all political actors,” the statement reads. It also stresses that “the result of the Venezuelan election, in order to be legitimized, must be a transparent reflection of the popular will freely expressed at the polls.”
Opposition leader María Corina Machado responded to the statement on social media X, highlighting the importance of transparent and fair elections. “The international community is very clear about the regime’s repression in the last few hours and demands, 10 days into the process, that it be carried out without political violence, complying with the Democratic Charter and the Barbados Agreement, and respecting popular sovereignty expressed through the vote,” she said.
The international support expressed in the statement comes after the arrest, in the early hours of Wednesday, of the head of security for María Corina Machado, who works on Edmundo González’s campaign. However, this has not been the only recent episode of harassment. This Thursday, Machado and her team were spending the night in the city of Barquisimeto, in the state of Lara, about 290 kilometers west of Caracas, when the vehicles of Machado and her team were attacked. Machado denounced through her social networks that the vehicles were vandalized and that, in one of them, the brake hose was cut. In addition, she commented that her entourage was closely followed by “agents of the regime” during the journey between the states of Lara and Portuguesa, where she held a campaign event. “As usually happens, the agents surrounded the urbanization where we spent the night,” added Machado.
The electoral campaign continues to advance in an uncertain scenario, especially for Chavismo. According to a study carried out by the Center for Political and Government Studies of the Andrés Bello Catholic University (CEPyG-UCAB) in collaboration with the pollster Delphos, Edmundo González would lead with 59.1% of the voting intention, while Nicolás Maduro would only reach 25%. This growth of González is what worries the hard core of Chavismo, who fear not being able to stop this trend and anticipate that it could intensify in the last week of the campaign.
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