Rafael Ramírez Colina, mayor of Maracaibo, the second largest city in Venezuela, capital of the border state of Zulia, was arrested on Tuesday night. The intelligence services officials took him away from his office headquarters without court orders along with five other people, part of his team, including his Security Director, David Barroso. The arrest of the mayor, a member of Primero Justicia, lifted the sentences of opposition leaders from all sectors, when the number of political prisoners exceeds 1,700 at this time, after the post-election repressive wave.
The reason for these new arrests is unknown. Last week his chief of staff, Pedro Guanipa, brother of the leader of the Unitary Platform, Juan Pablo Guanipa, was arrested when he was preparing to stamp his passport to travel to Bogotá, Colombia, for family commitments. The head of Parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, called him corrupt the same Tuesday before he was sought by the police. Local media reported this Wednesday that officials from the Bolivarian Intelligence Service remained at the Maracaibo mayor’s office.
In a statement, his party rejected what happened. “We do not know details about his condition, as well as the reasons that motivated this procedure, which violates our principles enshrined in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” says Primero Justicia. The opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who remains in custody, also condemned the arrest in a message on her social networks. “We denounce to the world how the regime’s repressive wave is intensifying. Now against Rafael Ramírez Colina, acting mayor of Maracaibo, the second largest city in Venezuela, and other members of his work team. “With this wave of terror, the regime seeks to break the will and divide the enormous social movement that expressed itself on July 28 and defeated tyranny.”
Since January of this year, at least 20 opposition mayors elected in the 2021 regional elections have been detained, harassed or dismissed as part of Chavismo’s percussion of dissidence and those who supported the candidacy of Edmundo González Urrutia for the presidential elections on December 28. July. Of these, five remain imprisoned and 10 have been disqualified. In most cases, councilors from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela have imposed their replacements. It happened last August in the town of Carora, where the mayor Javier Torres was harassed by the police forces, he went underground and although he appointed an official in charge, the chamber of councilors controlled by Chavismo declared absolute fault, in a procedure outlaw, and appointed a replacement.
With these new arrests, the political and legitimacy crisis generated by the presidential elections worsens, after which Nicolás Maduro was proclaimed winner without presenting the minutes with the votes cast by the CNE, while the opposition has published them showing the winner. González Urrutia by more than 30 points difference.
Rodríguez, the Government’s main political operator, this week called for “political dialogue” among the sectors that participated in the last elections in a first session called for this Thursday. “Sit down and talk, if you don’t want to come, there’s no need and don’t go screaming at the Spanish Cortes. It is better that they come here and let’s talk, if they don’t come, we will talk to those who come,” said Rodríguez, after announcing that the electoral and political party laws will be reformed in view of the regional elections that take place in 2025. ” A fruitful dialogue, not only of political parties, we are going to call on all sectors of society to give their opinion, but this is a special commission to be able to do all the legislative technical work that leads us to these new laws.”
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