AFP, AP and Europa Press

The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, July 24, 2024, p. 28

Caracas. Have a chamomile teasuggested yesterday the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, a day after his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, expressed concern about the Venezuelan president’s warnings about a bloodbath if the opposition wins Sunday’s presidential election.

For its part, the opposition alliance Unitary Platform denounced technical problems on the electoral authority’s website to accredit its observers during the elections.

I didn’t tell lies. I just made a reflection. Whoever is scared should take a chamomile tea.Maduro claimed without expressly mentioning Lula.

I said that if, denied and transmuted, the extremist right (…) came to political power in Venezuela, there would be a bloodbath. And I’m not saying this as an invention, it’s that we already experienced a bloodbath on February 27 and 28.Maduro said in reference to the Caracazo, a social uprising that occurred in February 1989 that left thousands dead, according to reports, although the official death toll was 300. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez (1999-2013), used this to justify the failed insurrection that he led on February 4, 1992, which would mark the rise of his popularity.

If he loses, he will have to accept it, says Alberto Fernández

“I was scared by Maduro’s statements that if he loses the elections there will be a bloodbath. Those who lose the elections take a bath of votes, not blood,” Lula said. “When you lose, you leave. And you prepare to contest another election,” the president declared on Monday and yesterday he was seconded by former Argentine president Alberto Fernández (2019-2023), who will attend the Venezuelan electoral meeting as an observer.

If (Maduro) is defeated, what he has to do is accept, as Lula said: the one who wins, wins, and the one who loses, loses (…) I am going to do what they asked me, be an observer of the elections so that everything works well.Fernández said in a radio interview about the elections.

What Venezuela needs is to recover its democratic coexistence and for those who are wandering around the world because they left the country, for whatever reason, to be able to return.Fernández added, referring to the nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have emigrated from the country in the last decade, according to United Nations data.

“In Venezuela we are going to have the biggest electoral victory in history (…) peace, popular power, the perfect civic-military-police union will triumph,” insisted President Maduro, 61, who is seeking a third term, which would give him 18 years in power.

Meanwhile, the opposition coalition Unitary Platform maintains that it registered more than 90 thousand witnesses in the electoral process, but technical difficulties prevented the printing of their credentials.

We are talking about 90 thousand people who have decided to accept this enormous responsibility and prepare themselves (…). Without the accreditation certificate, I doubt that the Plan República (military deployment to guard elections) will give them access to the centers.Perkins Rocha, spokesman for González Urrutia’s campaign command, told reporters.

Rocha asked the National Electoral Council to the problem of accreditation of witnesses is resolvedwhom he called the meticulous and qualified eyes for the guarantee of transparency and legitimacy of the process.

The Unitary Platform is nominating Edmundo González Urrutia, 74, for president instead of former deputy María Corina Machado, who won the opposition front’s primaries but is disqualified from holding public office due to an administrative sanction.