Venezuelan opposition rejects call by the president of the National Assembly to discuss reforms to electoral laws

( Spanish) – The Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), which brings together the main opposition forces in Venezuela, rejected this Wednesday the call issued by the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), to carry out, on Thursday, a meeting to discuss possible reforms to the country’s electoral laws.

“The dialogue proposed by Jorge Rodríguez is just a propaganda exercise without participation previously agreed upon with us, without an agenda, without rules, without a safe location so that all participants are exempt from threats and pressure from the regime, and without a impartial mediator to accompany you. All of these are essential conditions to guarantee the integrity and seriousness of the process,” the PUD said in a statement to respond to the approach of Rodríguez, one of the men closest to President Nicolás Maduro.

“The regime intends to impose a structure in the negotiations that is not agreed upon with us, the legitimate democratic forces that won the presidential election; and we do not accept this,” added the message, which is also signed by the presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and the opposition leader María Corina Machado.

The call by the president of the National Assembly – the ruling majority body – to discuss possible reforms to the electoral laws on October 3 was announced on Tuesday, more than two months before the presidential elections on July 28.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) proclaimed Maduro the winner, but the opposition rejects it and, among other arguments, points out that proof that the true winner was González Urrutia is that the minutes in its possession indicate that the former ambassador obtained 67% of the vote. the votes. The PUD also argues that the CNE, until now, has not published the minutes broken down by voting station, a demand that several countries in America and Europe have supported.

In its statement this Wednesday, the PUD insisted that it won the race and pointed out that “the review of electoral rules is not the center of the problem,” but that the ruling party must recognize that it lost and begin a transition period.

“We invite the representatives of the Maduro regime and its spokesperson, Jorge Rodríguez, to agree with us on the terms of a serious negotiation that allows the fluidity of the transition and that enforces the will of the electorate, expressed on July 28, with the election of Edmundo González Urrutia,” the statement says.

The Minister of the Interior of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, responded to the opposition’s statement this evening. During his weekly program “With the hammer giving”, he criticized the PUD for not accepting the results of the CNE.

“I say innocently, if I am in a baseball league and I arrive at the baseball game and, from the start of the game, in the first game I start protesting the umpires, the referee, I push them, I insult them, they throw me out. of the game,” he said. Moments before, he assured that Maduro – who has been in power since 2013 – will begin his new mandate on January 10.