At the meeting between the foreign ministers of Colombia and Venezuela held this Monday in the city of Cúcuta, Iván Gil, representative of Chavismo, said with respect to the presidential elections scheduled for July 28th, that the representatives of the Unitary Platform (PU) had given the world “a media version that showed that the National Electoral Council or some organization had prevented the registration of a candidate.”
Luz Dary Depablos / Correspondent lapatilla.com
“The reality is that 100% of the organizations with partisan purposes in Venezuela registered candidates.” He mentioned that no one used the option to register by their own initiative and that the “process was successfully closed,” despite the impediment of Corina Yoris’s application as reported by the PU (Plataforma Unitaria).
Likewise, he added that the electoral campaign begins on June 4th. “The different organizations had their candidate selection process. There was one that was quite present in the media and generated quite a few headlines, but on an internal topic. I am referring to the Unitary Opposition Platform, which represents a part of the Venezuelan opposition and which converges 10 organizations, of which 12 are registered in the National Electoral Council and went through an internal process to select their own candidates.”
Regarding the repeated complaints by the representatives of the Unitary Platform about violations in electoral matters and democratic rights, Gil noted that he had expressed to the Colombian Foreign Minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, that in Venezuela there is “a wonderful, almost perfect electoral system.”
It is worth remembering that in recent days, the Colombian Foreign Ministry issued a statement in which it expressed its concern about “the recent events that occurred on the occasion of the registration of some presidential candidacies, particularly in relation to the difficulties faced by majority sectors of the opposition, such as the Democratic Unitary Platform and the Vente Venezuela Movement, among others.”
#Atención | El canciller (e) Luis Gilberto Murillo confirmó que Colombia será observadora electoral en las elecciones presidenciales de Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/f1oU8YkBvz
— La FM (@lafm) April 8, 2024
Immediately afterwards there was a response from Iván Gil, through his social network accounts, where he considered that the position of the Colombian government was a “rude interference” and “driven by the need to please the designs of the State Department of The USA.”
This Monday, at the first meeting of the “Neighborhood and Integration Commission between Colombia and Venezuela,” it was publicly demonstrated that the Colombian government changed its position after meeting with the Chavista representative.
Gil recalled that in the last 25 years, Chavismo has held 30 elections. He also indicated that, until now, they have only invited representatives of CELAC and the Colombian government as international observers, to accompany “our electoral fests.”