By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. Sept. 2, 2020: Venezuela’s opposition last night denied that it was in talks to join a parliamentary vote in the South American nation.
“We inform Venezuelans and the international community of our absolute ignorance of the un-consulted negotiations carried out in a personal capacity between the regime of Nicolás Maduro and the leaders Henrique Capriles and Stalin González,” opposition leader Juan Guaidó said in a statement in Spanish last night.
His statement came as Reuters reported that two high-profile Venezuelan opposition leaders – two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles and legislator Stalin Gonzalez – have been quietly leading an effort to field opposition candidates despite worries that the vote will be tilted in favor of the ruling Socialist Party of President Nicolas Maduro to participate in the upcoming legislative elections despite a planned boycott.
Guaidó reiterated that he will not participate in electoral fraud: “Our fight is for true freedom,” he was quoted as saying while also denouncing the violent assault on the AD headquarters in Carabobo at the hands of the Maduro dictatorship
“We want to be categorical: these actions were carried out without the knowledge or authorization of the interim Government, the National Assembly, our international allies, or the unitary agreement reached and announced by 27 political organizations that group the democratic forces. Therefore, we do not know them,” he stated. “The various mediation efforts in search of political solutions and electoral conditions to which we have been part are public and notorious, but we will never be willing to accept electoral agreements that do not allow the true expression of the will of the people. The fight is for freedom and true fair, free and verifiable elections. No to fraud, yes to unity: free presidential and parliamentary elections.”
Mevlut Cavusoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey – a close political and commercial ally of Venezuela – said in a news conference that Capriles and Gonzalez had insisted on the presence of outside observers in the vote, which Maduro had agreed to.
“We see that the administration and the opposition are close to a deal, and we are happy about this,” Cavusoglu was quoted by Reuters as saying. “The attendance of outside observers is one of the conditions, and these conditions have been accepted by the Maduro administration.”
