▲ Opponents tore down a statue of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and set it on fire in the town of Mariara, in the state of Carabobo.Afp Photo

Alonso Urrutia and Emir Olivares

The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, August 1, 2024, p. 26

Hours before the General Assembly of the Organization of American States was held to discuss the situation in Venezuela following the elections, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that Mexican Foreign Minister Alicia Bárcena would not participate because the organization’s position is not serious and is not responsible in the situation facing Venezuelans.

The president questioned that even before knowing the results, the Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, He had already recognized one of the candidates, without any proof. Why are we going to a meeting like this? This is not serious, it is not responsible, it does not help to find a peaceful and democratic solution to a conflict in a Latin American country?

He was in favor of presenting the evidence and the voting records to find out what happened. Although it is an electronic vote, he said, there must be proof of the votes, because so far only the report from the National Electoral Council with 80 percent of the results has been released. from one of the partiesIf there are no agreements or there is no agreement, there must be judicial bodies to which differences can be resolved in order to avoid confrontation and violence.

–Do you think that the fraud that you experienced, or that you reported in Venezuela, could be taking place?

–I have no elements, there is no evidence in the Venezuelan case. We did have a lot of evidence.

At the conference, he reaffirmed his condemnation of interventionism, stressing that the problems of the South American country have stagnated and no solution has been found, because There is a lot of interference, people from abroad get involved, and not just governments..

Act with caution

Asked about the position taken by the presidents of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and Colombia, Gustavo Petro, he stressed that he will wait until there are more elements that allow for greater clarity about what happened. We want to know more and act with caution so as not to be carried away by the right-wing current that influences the world, because it is evident, governments, media, in Latin America and around the world..

He assumed the role of a true democrat who does not act out of convenience or pretense, emphasizing that a true democrat is one who defends the people. If a ruler presents himself as a democrat but defends the powerful, he is not one. Enough of using democracy as a facade, as happened here, where supposedly there was democracy; yes, only the government was a committee at the service of a rapacious minority..