Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López released a joint statement with the Interior Ministry on Tuesday (6) to deny a request made by the opposition for security forces to stop repressing protests by the Venezuelan population.
In the note, the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela (Fanb) and the police forces “vehemently reject the desperate and seditious approaches contained in a letter published on social media yesterday, August 5, by Mr. Edmundo González Urrutia, former presidential candidate, and by the right-wing extremist María Corina Machado.”
“First of all, it is important to mention that those who claim to be democrats have a long and dark history as promoters of radical and absolutely unconstitutional anti-democratic actions, contrary to all laws,” the note pointed out, which blames the opposition for the violence in the demonstrations that began last week.
“We reaffirm our absolute loyalty to the citizen Nicolás Maduro Moros, constitutional president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, supreme commander of the FANB, who was legitimately reelected by the people’s power and proclaimed by the electoral power for the next presidential term 2025-2031. At the same time, we support his republican spirit, reflected in the proposal to resolve the electoral dispute through the Supreme Court of Justice, which will have the final word, demonstrating once again the strength of the country’s democratic institutions,” the statement added.
On Monday, González and Machado had released a letter in which they reiterated that the main bloc opposed to Chavismo obtained 67% of the votes in the presidential election, while Maduro reached 30%.
However, they recalled that the dictator refuses to recognize defeat and has increased repression against the Venezuelan people, who took to the streets to protest against the official result giving victory to Maduro.
González and Machado appealed to “the conscience of the military and police to stand by the people and their own families” and asked them to fulfill “their institutional duties, not to repress the people, to support them.” González also called for him to be proclaimed president-elect “immediately.”
A few hours later, Venezuela’s attorney general, Chavista Tarek William Saab, announced the opening of a criminal investigation against González and Machado, claiming that the letter “falsely announces a winner of the presidential elections other than the one proclaimed by the National Electoral Council, the only body authorized to do so,” and “openly incites police and military officials to disobey the law.”
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