The crisis in Venezuela continues to aggravate and different leaders across the globe have noticed it. Venezuela is a recurrent topic in almost every bilateral meetings, forums and more given the latest episodes of injustice in the South American country.
On Saturday, both France and Argentina’s presidents Emmanuel Macron and Mauricio Macri had a meeting and among different topics they had the chance to discuss, Venezuela was one of them. Mr. Macron pointed out that the country “It’s not been a democracy for a long time.”
These landed after the Supreme Court’s decision of imposing restrictions on the main opposition coalition for presidential elections expected to be held in April.
Macron added that there was no demonstration of progress from President Nicolás Maduro’s government and urged a major effort in order to help restore the democracy in Venezuela.
“We’ll have to see at the European level whether we want new sanctions. I am in favor of having them.”
“I want us to go further given the recent decisions and the shift to authoritarianism,” Macron added.
Plus, Mr. Macri stated that Venezuelan institutions had been “clearly overrun”. He said: “We need to demand free and transparent elections so that Venezuelans can really express their views and start building a future.”
All of this comes following Maduro’s comments, stating he’s keen to go for a re-election, extending his six-year term to another six “put an end to the imperialist threat”. While Venezuela is having the worst crisis in the 21st century, plenty of people is starving to death, the president is more worried about how to throw the opposition under the bus than finding ways to fix the horrendous situation the country is going through right now.
Proof of this is all the distractions and obstacles the MUD (the opposition main coalition, which stands for Democratic Union Roundtable in Spanish) is facing right now, but even though they’re able to get around them, not much people are convinced that they have a real chance of winning the elections. In the past, there have been several episodes of irregularities and suspicious moments during election days.
The European Union has shown its concerns about the situation in Venezuela the human right violations that take place in the country. This week they finally targeted Venezuelan officials and sanctions didn’t take too long to come.
Spain also did its part and in response, Maduro’s government expulsed their ambassador on Thursday and Spain did the same one day later.
Macron pointed out that “Pressure on the regime will bear fruit when those who impose sanctions work together.” It appears like all of them are making the right decisions now and this might signify something for Venezuela’s future.
