MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan presidential hopeful wants negotiated solution for Venezuela

The electoral process in Venezuela was “flawed and not very clear,” Orsi admitted

Uruguayan opposition presidential candidate Yamandú Orsi this weekend supported a peaceful and negotiated solution to the Venezuelan crisis and insisted that “suffering should be the least possible.” The Broad Front nominee made those remarks when commenting on Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's suggestion that a coalition government of the ruling PSUV and the challenging PUD could be arranged pending fresh elections.

“The first thing we have to take into account is that there have been deaths, violence and that is what should concern us most. Any process has to end well, but in the meantime, the suffering must be the least possible,” Orsi argued.

Venezuela “is a very rich country, and that generates the attention of the world. I think it is a good thing that, because the process was flawed and not very clear, an agreed and peaceful solution is sought again and again,” he went on.

“On the one hand, I am comforted by the Latin Americanist spirit that suddenly enters some, because the people of Venezuela have been very generous with the Uruguayans,” he also explained while recalling that foreign leaders should not take sides. “I think it doesn't help when, from the government, such defined positions are taken towards a political sector in another country. You have to be very careful,” Orsi stressed.

“There are two positions ... at the international level that more or less align. Those who add fuel to the fire, because they get some profit, and those who seek a peaceful solution,” he also pointed out during a press conference in Lascano, in the department (province) of Rocha.

Regarding the speech of Uruguayan envoy to the Organization of American States (OAS) Washington Abdala on Friday, who called President Nicolás Maduro's regime a totalitarian dictatorship, Orsi recalled that Venezuela was not a member of the OAS and therefore nothing good could come out from such an agency. Orsi also underlined that his country's ruling class was focused on what is happening in Venezuela while seven people were “shot dead during a weekend in Uruguay.”

“When it comes to prioritizing there is philosophy, ideology, and thought,” Orsi highlighted.