The coalition of opposition parties in Venezuela denounced this Thursday new disqualifications, arrests and arrest warrants against its members, in the midst of the campaign for the presidential election on July 28.
The government of President Nicolás Maduro, “in the face of the growing avalanche of support that candidate Edmundo (González) receives every day (…) uses the unconstitutional figure of administrative disqualifications as a way to punish political leaders and authorities (. ..)”, reads a statement from the parties grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), published on the social network X.
In the last few hours, the opposition has counted six campaign collaborators detained, an arrest warrant issued by the justice system and 10 mayors disqualified.
So far this year, at least 37 political leaders close to the opposition campaign have been arrested, campaign leader María Corina Machado said at a press conference on Monday, where denounced “persecution” and criminalization of electoral activity.
In the statement, the group recounts the arrests and adds the arrest of Jonnhy Liscano, mayor in the state of Táchira, and the arrest warrant against Rigoberto Ovallos, also mayor in Táchira.
On Wednesday, the prosecutor’s office charged four collaborators of González, Maduro’s main rival, who is seeking re-election and projected 18 years in power for “inciting hatred.”
The attorney general, Tarek William Saab, reported on the social network
According to Saab, during a campaign event in La Guaira at the beginning of June, the accused “aggressively addressed the Bolivarian National Guard Command (…) where they tried to enter by using force with the intention of causing injuries to the troops”.
This Thursday, earlier, Edmundo González in conversation with the VOA He called the government’s actions “arbitrary.” “It is an arbitrariness that does not contribute to the climate of peace that should exist in an electoral process,” he responded.
Disqualifications
The disqualifications reach eight mayors in the state of Trujillo, in the southwest of the country: Heriberto Tapia (Motatán municipality), José Carrillo (Urdaneta municipality), Dilcia Rojas (Campo Elías municipality), Keiver Peña (Sucre municipality), Cervando Godoy (Municipality Márquez Cannizales), Wilmer Delgado (Monte Carmelo municipality), Yohanthi Domínguez (Carache municipality) and Francisco Aguilar (Andrés Bello municipality).
In the state of Nueva Esparta, in the north of the country, the disabled areas are Iraima Vásquez (Tubores municipality) and José María Fermín (Villalba municipality).
According to the system of the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR), the mayors are disqualified to hold public office for 15 years.
“Isn’t it that they are not afraid of me? What a way to find out about a decision that didn’t go through any of the regular channels. “Atrocious!” wrote Mayor Heriberto Tapia of Motatán along with the screenshot of the CNE publication.
Disqualification is a frequent and old weapon of the government to remove its rivals from the electoral path.
In any case, the opposition group assures that “this in no way affects the commitment to change, but on the contrary, they consolidate it.”
“We demand that the Barbados agreement be respected and that full freedom be granted to all political prisoners because doing politics and reporting is not a crime,” the statement continued.
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