Brian Nichols, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said on Thursday that incentives given by President Joe Biden’s administration to Venezuela’s socialist government could help convince dictator Nicolas Maduro to hold a “free and fair” presidential election. said it was not “enough”.
Mr Nichols argued: meeting The conference was held by the American Society of America with the theme of the Biden administration’s Western Hemisphere policy.
nichols Said:
I think we need to be clear about what the incentives are for us and the rest of the international community to prepare for competitive elections in Venezuela. It was not enough to motivate reforms and openings that Maduro’s side believes would endanger the government.
The Biden administration is Year, It encouraged Maduro to hold “free and fair” elections and offered generous concessions to the dictator in exchange for vague promises that the regime never indicated it intended to keep.The most favorable incentive given was widespread oil and gas sanctions relief. package This will allow Venezuela to once again freely sell oil on the US and international markets.
nicoleahMaduro (Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The sanctions relief package restored the dictatorship’s main source of income after the administration of former President Donald Trump. imposed In 2019, it imposed sanctions on state oil company PDVSA in response to the Maduro regime’s continued serious human rights violations against its own people.
maduro government announced On Tuesday, Venezuela announced it would hold a fake presidential election on July 28th. Venezuelan authorities chose that day because it was the birthday of late dictator Hugo Chávez, a pseudo-holiday celebrated by ruling socialists.
Maria Colina Machado of Venezuela’s only mainstream center-right party, Vente Venezuela, an opponent of President Maduro and the front-runner in the hypothetical real election, is prohibited from running for public office. vote According to documents released at the end of 2023, if free and fair elections were actually held, Mr. Machado would receive more than 70% of the votes against Mr. Maduro as presidential candidate.
Maria Colina Machado (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)
At Thursday’s meeting, Mr. Nichols, representing the United States, prompted Other Latin American countries are calling for pressure on Maduro’s government to ensure that the fake presidential election on July 28 is “free and democratic.”
“Those leaders [Latin American] Countries should continue to send the message that Venezuelans deserve the same choice and that true leaders will run for office and respect their people’s choices,” Nichols said.
The Maduro government’s fake election announcement will put the final nail in the coffin of the “Barbados Agreement”, a document signed in October between representatives of the socialist regime and representatives of the “opposition” coalition of the Venezuelan Unity Platform. .
The agreement was signed under the watchful eye of US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who considered a series of measures aimed at holding a “free and fair” presidential election in the second half of 2024.
In return, Biden signed a generous oil and gas sanctions relief package. according to The deal to the White House may not be renewed in April because Maduro’s government has repeatedly violated the terms of the deal. President Maduro recently announced that the Barbados agreement is null and void.replacedIt is based on an agreement signed in Caracas with a group of collaborationist organizations that lack a unified platform.
nichols said The US claimed to support Venezuela’s “democratic process” despite evidence of abuses by Maduro. Still, Nichols acknowledged that Maduro was moving in the “wrong” direction, including by supporting a ban on Machado.
The assistant secretary of state said the US was taking a “calculated risk” of potentially “accepting an election in which the heirs of Hugo Chávez’s estate have no control over the outcome.”
“We have finally concluded that the status quo is bad for America, good for our adversaries, and cannot advance the cause of democracy,” he asserted.
Nichols also said the U.S. government is “concerned” about the strict deadlines imposed by Maduro’s government ahead of the July 28 sham election. The electoral calendar presented by Venezuela’s socialist-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) states that non-banned candidates can only declare their candidacy between March 21 and 25, and if necessary People can update their voter registration information for up to one month.
“The schedule is tight and I don’t want to prejudge how things will go, but I’m very concerned about the direction in which things are going,” Nichols said.
Maduro was first elected president of Venezuela in April 2013 in a snap election following the death of Hugo Chávez. In the 2013 election, President Maduro “won” with a margin of 1.49 percent of the vote. troubled Thousands of cases of fraud have been documented. The socialist dictator then fake In the 2018 election, only handpicked “rivals” were allowed to run against him. The highly fraudulent and internationally condemned election allowed President Maduro to secure a new six-year term, ending in January 2025.
With Mr. Machado ousted and no other opposition politicians remaining except for little-known or very unpopular “opposition” candidates, Mr. Maduro is now “re-elected” for a new six-year term. paved the way for
Venezuela’s ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) It was deleted In 2009, a sham referendum to amend the constitution resulted in term limits for all public offices.
In his State of the Union address on Thursday, Biden did not mention Venezuela or the Maduro regime, nor how the regime’s policies and concessions helped strengthen the unjust socialist regime. release In December, Alex Saab, who is said to be President Maduro’s top money launderer.
a report A paper published in 2023 found that the Biden administration’s immigration policy, which allowed more than 500,000 Venezuelan immigrants to enter the United States, served as a “safety valve” for the Maduro regime, easing internal pressure on Venezuela and encouraging Venezuelan migrants to enter the United States. It has been shown that the possibility of A riot or rebellion.
WATCH: Venezuelans celebrate march from Venezuela to El Paso, Texas
1strespondersmedia/Twitch
The report also says remittances sent by Venezuelans to their families are also helping Venezuela’s economy, as decades of socialist misgovernment have pushed it to the brink of complete collapse.
Christian K. Caruso is a Venezuelan writer who chronicles life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
