MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuela withdraws invitation to EU as election observers

Amoroso claimed the EU was unworthy of an invitation given its colonialist stance

Venezuelan authorities announced Tuesday they were withdrawing the invitation previously extended to the European Union (RU) to monitor the July 28 elections in a move that cast additional doubts over a process that has for long looked fudgy following the disenfranchisement of opposition leader María Corina Machado.

President Nicolás Maduro now appears to be headed for an unchallenged victory while Machado is undertaking a nationwide campaign to get 74-year-old opposition diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia elected.

Tuesday's decision came despite the EU's recent lifting of sanctions against National Electoral Council (CNE) Chairman Elvis Amoroso and other high-ranking agency officials.

“The National Electoral Council of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela revokes and leaves without effect the invitation sent to the European Union to participate, through an electoral oversight mission, in the elections for the office of president,” Amoroso told reporters Tuesday. Amoroso also argued that the measure was adopted because the EU kept other sanctions against Venezuela in place. Amoroso had requested a “total lifting” of the sanctions and “the cessation of the hostile position” while dubbing the partial move as “blackmail.”

“This May 13, the European Union, in its historical colonialist position, ratified the unilateral and genocidal coercive sanctions dictated to the dignified people of Venezuela,” he stressed.

In light of this situation, National Assembly Speaker Jorge Rodríguez said he would ask Amoroso to review the EU's invitation “for being rude, for being scoundrels, for being bastards.”

After Tuesday's measure, Brussels asked Maduro to reconsider it because ”the European Union deeply regrets the unilateral decision of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council to withdraw its invitation (...) we call on the National Electoral Council to reconsider its decision.”

In this scenario, the Carter Center remains the only conspicuous foreign institution present on July 28. Still, its ability to detect and correct any irregularity appears limited given the Venezuelan regime's infamous repression.

In addition to the Carter Center, the BRICS group and the African Union have been invited over as observers but democratic practices in both blocs are far from unquestionable.

The EU sent a mission in 2021 for the last mayoral and gubernatorial elections, in which it identified considerable improvements in the voting system but the delegation's presence ended abruptly after Maduro claimed they were “enemies” and “spies.”