Government and opposition reject new elections in Venezuela

The Venezuelan government, led by President Nicolás Maduro, and the opposition, centered on the far-right figure of María Corina Machado, rejected the proposal to hold new elections in the country.

Maduro has opposed holding new elections from the beginning, as this would be a public way of admitting defeat to Edmundo González Urrutia.

Maria Corina Machado also ruled out the possibility of repeating the election, in an interview with the newspaper El País last Sunday (11). “Please, in whose mind can another election be held? There was one here, under the terms of the regime, with an absolutely unequal campaign,” she declared.

To the Economic Valuethe special advisor for international affairs to the Presidency and former foreign minister Celso Amorim said that he presented this idea to the president after hearing the suggestion of other international actors, but stressed that it is informal, and is still under development.

During a public hearing at the Foreign Relations Committee, this Thursday (12), in the Senate, Celso Amorim reaffirmed that he did not make the proposal. “I did not do it, we never made a proposal for new elections,” he said.

“It’s a topic. I heard it for the first time, I can’t say from whom, but it wasn’t from a Brazilian. I think the curious thing about new elections is that, both a [lado] as others could easily accept. If they all said they won, they would win again.”