Presidents of Colombia and Venezuela Meet Today in Caracas

The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela are holding talks today in Caracas. Gustavo Petro from Colombia and Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela are meeting for their fifth session since Petro took office in Colombia in August 2022. This encounter follows recent strains between the nations, sparked by Colombia’s critique of Venezuela’s barring of opposition candidates from the upcoming July elections.

The foreign ministers of Colombia and its neighboring country met in Cucuta, a key border city, on Monday, April 8. This gathering comes a few months into Gustavo Petro’s presidency, during which Colombia renewed diplomatic and trade ties with its neighbor. These steps included reopening border crossings that had been shut down since 2019, under the leadership of former president Ivan Duque.

Venezuelan presidential elections

The upcoming discussion between the two presidents will focus on the Venezuelan presidential elections set for July 28. As the election process unfolds, Nicolas Maduro’s government has barred several opposition figures from running. This includes Maria Corina Machado, a leading opposition candidate and the victor of the opposition’s internal elections a few months ago.

Machado’s political movement tried to nominate as its representative the independent intellectual Corina Yoris, but the Venezuelan electoral entity prevented her registration, alleging “technical problems”. This fact produced an important reaction of condemnation from many countries, among them Colombia, which until then had not pronounced itself so forcefully against the maneuvers of the Venezuelan government to sabotage the options of the opposition in that country.

“The right to choose is not only individual; it belongs to society. Today this discussion is very well argued in the facts of Venezuela. Mrs. Maria Corina and others were previously disqualified from participating in electoral campaigns by administrative authorities”, said President Petro, in statements that the Venezuelan government did not like at all.

“Cowardly left”

The response to these words of the Colombian president was not long in coming. It was President Maduro himself who described governments such as the Colombian one as representing a “cowardly left”.

Petro, on his part, answered that “there is no cowardly left, there is the probability of, through deepening democracy, changing the world. Chavez’s magic was to propose democracy and change the world”. Furthermore, the Colombian Chief of State assured that “today’s revolution is: to transform the world by deepening democracy”.