The former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos This Monday he sent a strong message to the presidents Gustavo Petro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “If Lula and Petro really want to pressure Maduro to hold free elections, now is the time,” said the former president.
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According to Santos, The actions of the Colombian and Brazilian leaders are crucial this weeksince a reaction is expected from the government of Nicolás Maduro to the unification of the opposition against the candidacy of the former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia and it may disable it.
During the interview, Santos affirmed that Maduro “is clinging to power” and believes that he will only abandon it if he achieves a “dignified exit” for himself and for the entire “regime command” otherwise “He's going to die there, defending himself.”
If Lula and Petro really want to pressure Maduro to hold free elections, now is the time
The plebiscite proposal was made known to Lula last week, during his official visit to Colombia and although the Brazilian president did not make a public statement on the matter, according to Petro, Lula supports it.
Both Petro and Lula share the position that isolating Venezuela is not the solution, but their criticism of the registration of the candidate of the largest opposition coalition, Corina Yoris, and that of María Corina Machado, prevented from holding public positions of popular election until 2036, have earned them reproaches from Chavismo.
The anecdote that Santos has with Michel Temer and Donald Trump
“We were together at the UN General Assembly in 2017, and Donald Trump asked to speak privately with the main Latin American countries about Venezuela. And Trump told us, at first it seemed like a joke, then we saw that he was serious: 'why not an invasion?'” Santos recalled.
In other words, Trump was asking them for approval to launch an invasion of Venezuela. However, during the private meeting no one seemed convinced to follow Trump's lead with this idea.
Trump told us, at first it seemed like a joke, then we saw that he was serious: 'why not an invasion?
“I said, 'Forget it, President, that would be incredibly crazy.' It was then that I proposed to him and the group that Maduro had to be given a dignified exit. That the investigations against him at the International Criminal Court be suspended and that he not be prosecuted for his crimes, otherwise he would never leave power. But Trump didn't like the idea at all, he wanted a harsher solution. And today we are where we are.”
INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL – EL TIEMPO
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