The lifting of individual sanctions imposed by the European Union on four electoral officials in charge of organizing the presidential elections on July 28 has not been well received by the Venezuelan Government. “Today we see how the European Union removes some members of the National Electoral Council from the sanctioned list to supposedly send a signal of good faith or relief,” said Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil. “You cannot say: ‘I sanction these officials and I don’t sanction them,’” Gil said during a meeting of the Group of Friends of the United Nations Charter held in Caracas.
Brussels announced the lifting of sanctions against Elvis Eduardo Amoroso Hidrobo, president of the National Electoral Council (CNE), and three former officials of the same organization: Socorro Hernández, Leonardo Morales and Xavier Moreno. What for the EU has been a gesture of support for the presidential elections, has been interpreted by the electoral authority as an attempt to coerce part of the “neocolonial practices” of the community of countries.
The Government’s reaction threatens to complicate the path for a European electoral observation mission in the presidential elections, one of the guarantees agreed with the opposition in Barbados so that these elections are considered free and competitive. Just this Monday, Chavismo has mobilized in the streets against the sanctions. “As long as the European Union persists in its policy of hostility against our country, it will be impossible to establish a sincere, respectful and productive dialogue with the Venezuelan Electoral Power,” Amoroso warned in a press conference held in the afternoon.
Last month, an exploration commission visited the country to evaluate conditions on the ground for the installation of an observation mission. The memorandum of that trip should be discussed soon to specify the sending of experts at least a month before the elections.
In 2021, the EU participated in the regional and local elections. The head of the mission, the Portuguese Isabel Santos, and the observers were expelled by Maduro after presenting their preliminary report criticizing the process in which the opposition winner of a government controlled for years by Chavismo was arbitrarily disqualified and a repeat order was ordered. the elections in that territory. After that exit through the back door, diplomatic relations have been restored little by little. In March, the CNE made formal invitations to be electoral “overseers” to the European Union, the United Nations panel of experts, the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations, the Carter Center, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac) , the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the African Union.
Amoroso has insisted that he rejects Brussels’ measure — which in practice would allow him to travel to Europe without restrictions — for not including all officials affected by individual sanctions. “I categorically reject the claims of the European Union to coerce me as well as the Electoral Power, trying to appear to international public opinion that they are proceeding to lift the coercive and unilateral sanctions imposed on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” he said.
Like the rest of Chavismo, the rector of the CNE has resorted to the narrative that the cause of the serious economic and health crisis that the country is experiencing has its origin in the sanctions, although the precariousness of the healthcare centers, the shortage of medicines and The failures in vaccination coverage and the closure of medical laboratories go back a long time.
Amoroso has taken advantage of his statement to make a request to the United States and the United Kingdom to lift the vetoes that exist on economic activities and gold reserves and to “cease the persecution against businessmen who are making an important effort to guarantee “Together with the Venezuelan State, medicines and food for the well-being of the Venezuelan inhabitants.” For the official, the European Union “persists in its neocolonial practices, without applying any correction to its mistaken interventionism against Venezuela.”
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América inFacebook andxor in ourweekly newsletter.
