Opposition leader María Corina Machado and former presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia issued a statement this Sunday addressed to Venezuelans and the international community, in which they assured that they are not participating in the mechanism announced between members of the 2015 National Assembly and representatives of the Venezuelan regime.
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“Members of the 2015 National Assembly and representatives of the regime have announced the creation of a mechanism between them in whose design, construction, and operation we do not participate; therefore, it is not our responsibility to explain its scope or its decisions. Those who promote it must inform the country of its objectives, its method, and its schedule,” the document states.
The leaders added that they will not be an obstacle to initiatives that produce progress, although they affirmed that these will be evaluated based on “concrete and verifiable achievements,” including “the recovery of democratic institutions, the release of all political prisoners, real guarantees for all actors without exclusions, a timely presidential electoral schedule, and full respect for Popular Sovereignty.”
In the declaration, Machado and González also maintained that the mandate expressed “with votes in the primaries of October 22, 2023, and in the presidential elections of July 28, 2024” remains in force.
Likewise, they pointed out that Venezuela is “devastated” after “more than a quarter of a century of a regime that plundered and repressed the Venezuelan people” and affirmed that the earthquakes of last June 24 increased that situation. In this context, they maintained that the aid organized by citizens “was attempted to be blocked, diverted, and controlled so that it would not reach those who needed it most.”
The statement also reiterated the proposals contained in the Panama Manifesto, including advancing in the release of political prisoners, the unconditional return of exiles, the creation of an environment of peace and freedom, and the consolidation of a Grand National Agreement for the Reconstruction of the Republic.
Finally, both leaders expressed their intention to return to the country.
“We are going to return to Venezuela, to accompany the people to whom we owe ourselves, to travel the country and build the Grand National Agreement for the Reconstruction of the Republic. To reunite families, to embrace each other, to go through this pain together and to rise again,” the text concludes.
The document closes by stating that “we will continue to assert the voice of the citizen, always with the truth first” and that “the people have already shown that they can save the people. What is missing is a government that lives up to what its people have shown.”
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