President Petro Condemns Disqualification of Opposition Leader in Venezuela

Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro has criticized the ban on opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from participating in Venezuela’s presidential elections set for July 28.

The Colombian head of state has spoken for the first time about the case, describing Machado’s disqualification by the Venezuelan justice system as an “anti-democratic coup”. Machado won the nomination to be the presidential candidate of the largest opposition platform to the government of Nicolas Maduro. The Venezuelan judicial system, under the influence of the current president, has barred her from entering the race.

Until now, the Colombian president had kept silent on the events in the neighboring country, but at an institutional event in Bogota, he stressed the need to “preserve the right to elect, be elected, and participate in equal conditions with the state,” emphasizing that this right is fundamental for the whole society.

Petro recalls that he was also disqualified

The Colombian head of state affirmed that the sanction of the Venezuelan opposition is undemocratic, and took the opportunity to recall that, according to him, “the same thing” happens in Colombia.

“Mrs. Maria Corina Machado and others were previously disqualified from participating in electoral campaigns by administrative authorities. The problem is, in Colombia the same thing happens, so it’s a kind of double standard: we attack what they do there because undoubtedly it is an anti-democratic coup, but we hide the fact that here it is also done”, said President Petro.

After many weeks of silence, Gustavo Petro’s first words on the case have focused on the Venezuelan government and the options it grants to the political opposition.

In his message, the current president of Colombia recalled that a Colombian administrative instance, controlled by the conservative faction, disqualified him when he was mayor of Bogota, in December 2013. Petro then had to leave office and only after going to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), was he able to return to his political office, when a sentence of this international court justified him in his lawsuit.

The difficult path of the Venezuelan opposition

After Maria Corina Machado was disqualified from political options for 15 years, her political platform tried to register a new candidate for the presidential elections. The chosen one was the independent Corina Yoris, a highly prestigious 80-year-old academic.

Yoris was also unable to register to compete for the presidency against Nicolas Maduro. In this case, the Venezuelan electoral authority alleged “technical problems” for not validating her registration.

After the protests inside and outside Venezuela, an extraordinary time began, in which Machado’s opposition platform took advantage to “provisionally” register Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

Colombia was one of the countries that protested against Venezuela’s refusal to register the candidacy of Corina Yoris. It did so, like other countries of the region, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. What was missing was a pronouncement from President Gustavo Petro, which has arrived today, and in a forceful manner.

Machado appreciates international support

For her part, the Venezuelan opposition leader, through a message on her social networks, expressed thanks for the support received from several international leaders, among them the president of Colombia. “I thank presidents Emmanuel Macron, Lula Da Silva and Gustavo Petro for their positions in the last hours that reaffirm that our struggle is fair and democratic”, Machado wrote.

In addition, the disqualified leader called again for the registration of Corina Yoris, as the candidate of her opposition platform. “As we see how international concern increases, I call on the democratic leaders of the world to join the efforts of presidents and governments in demanding Maduro’s regime to allow the registration of Corina Yoris as a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. It has become clear that there are no political or legal reasons that prevent Corina Yoris from being a candidate and that her exclusion, like mine, denies the possibility of free and fair elections”, she said vehemently.

Finally, Machado asked for the support of the international community, as a whole, for the “full implementation of the Barbados Agreement, signed just a few months ago, to achieve free and fair elections in Venezuela”.