The head of the officialism’s campaign command, Jorge Rodriguez, called on the Venezuelan opposition to sign an agreement to recognize the results of the presidential elections on July 28.
At the moment, the opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González has not publicly referred to Rodriguez’s most recent statements.
“As you know they’re going to sing fraud, but the challenges (…) we’re going to the CNE on Friday to sign a paper where we all commit to recognize the results, I’m ready, Maduro is ready, and they’re ready?,” Rodriguez said Tuesday in an activity of organizing the electoral machinery.
Rodriguez previously said that the opposition led by Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia will seek to install an electoral fraud matrix in the July 28 elections with the aim of promoting violence.
“On that matrix of fraud to try to install the violence, we will not allow it, so far,” said the head of the official delegation in negotiations with the opposition at a press conference.
The faction of Democratic Action, an opposition party intervened that has been pointed out by the traditional opposition to act favorably the government and that supports the presidential candidate, Luis Eduardo Martínez, said he accepted the proposal to go to the National Electoral Council (CNE) this Friday to sign the agreement.
“It is public, notorious and communicative that the far right is prepared to embarrass the electoral process, singing fraud,” he wrote in X Bernabé Gutiérrez, deputy and secretary general of the party intervened.
The agreement on electoral guarantees signed in Barbados by the government and the Democratic Unitarian Platform (PUD), a coalition of opposition parties, establishes the public recognition of the results of the presidential elections.
On several occasions the opposition, which has insisted that it will remain on the electoral route to achieve a transition in the country, has accused the government of violating the agreements signed in October that, earlier this year, Maduro pointed out as wounded to death.
Since the beginning of this year, the opposition has denounced a systematic wave of persecution and intimidation. Several collaborators of Machado, who is touring the country in the campaign for González, have been arrested for organizing alleged destabilizing plans in the country.
Last week the Venezuelan electoral body overturned the invitation to the European Union Electoral Observation Mission (EU EOM) for the elections, after, as part of efforts to achieve competitive elections, the bloc extended sanctions against Venezuelan officials for a shorter period.
The opposition and several countries, including the United States and Canada, condemned the announcement against commitments in Barbados, including the invitation of the EU EOM.
Recent opinion studies agree that González has a voting intention that exceeds 50 per cent. While Maduro, who is seeking his third term, is between 13 % and 27 %. A survey by the little-known consultant IdeaDatos, replicated by state media, gives it 52.1%.
This article has been translated after first appearing in El Mundo