Joe Biden declared Venezuela Day in the United States this Thursday, an unprecedented event in an obvious nod to one of the most suffering countries in the Americas. To celebrate his great diaspora’s contributions to the nation he also invited 80 exemplary citizens to the White House. Activists, journalists, athletes, artists, businessmen and fighters for the democratic cause represented the almost 600,000 Venezuelans who arrived in the United States, the majority during the collapse of Chavismo.
“We are looking to the future and talking about the next steps,” Cecilia González, a human rights defender, told Voice of America.
At the same time, other Venezuelans, not at all exemplary, were rushing in Caracas the deadline imposed by the Biden administration for the fulfillment of what was agreed in Barbados between the government and the opposition, with American sponsorship. A month and a half after the signing, Chavismo has only released five of the 275 political prisoners in the country. And none of them American, as Washington demanded.
Maduro has also not made progress on the other major thorny issue, the qualification of opposition leader María Corina Machado, which would allow her to participate in next year’s presidential elections. Polls confirm today that the great winner of last month’s opposition primaries would crush the “people’s president” at the polls, since she has popular support from 80% of Venezuelans, compared to the 15% that Maduro has. And all this without counting the large diaspora abroad, massively anti-Chavista.
“They threatened us that there was an ultimatum. Eat some candy, you scrawny (opponents). Those who are disqualified do not go (to the elections), they do not go and they do not go. Don’t be filled with hope. They don’t deserve it, they have done a lot damage to this country. They also have crimes to face,” Diosdado Cabello, number two of the revolution, strutted on television after the statements of Gerardo Blyde, head of the opposition commission in Barbados.
The former mayor and constitutionalist had assured hours before that Chavismo was willing to open a door to Machado’s rehabilitation through the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ). Blyde was very cautious when announcing that it would be enough for Chavismo to open a “procedure that could provide the tool, the formula or the mechanism to produce the qualifications, whether for María Corina or any other Venezuelan.”
The relaxation of energy sanctions against the revolution and the launch of repatriation flights for illegal immigrants supported the agreements reached in October, which are now in doubt due to Maduro’s immobility, focused on the referendum campaign planned for next Sunday. around Essequibo, the territory in dispute with neighboring Guyana.
In this scenario of the ultimatum, there was also a telephone conversation between Maduro and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in which the latter reiterated the need for Chavismo to comply with the Barbados agreements. On the Caribbean island, it was agreed to hold free and fair presidential elections for the second half of 2024, in which each bloc or party would decide its candidate.