
The trending topic in the Dominican Republic, in the news and in friends gathering, is Venezuela. The Dominican Republic has strong historic ties with Venezuela and a long history of Dominican migration to Venezuela and migration of Venezuelans to the Dominican Republic.
President Luis Abinader has established his position regarding Venezuela, one that he says does not have to do with any particular leader. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado denounced on Monday, 30 July that the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia had been declared winner by 73% of the electoral counts in the voting stations. The electoral authorities of Venezuela nevertheless declared Maduro the winner of the Sunday election.
“I express my deep concern about the electoral process in Venezuela, emphasizing that transparency must be the cornerstone of its legitimacy. Electoral rules cannot be applied arbitrarily. A recount of the ballots, with international verification, is essential to validating the results,” President Abinader has posted on his X account.
He has joined countries that have officially requested the recount of the votes tallies to compare this with those of the opposition political party in the presence of international electoral observers. Opposition leaders say that the vote would have gone more than 70% against the continuing of the Maduro government. The National Electoral Council (CNE) in Venezuela announced a 51% win of current President Nicolas Maduro.
During the weekly La Semanal press conference, President Abinader said the Dominican Republic does not have an ambassador in Venezuela, just a business attache. He was commenting on the recent order from the Maduro administration severing relations with countries that have stated they are not in agreement with the official announced outcome of the elections.
“We will never resign our principles of fighting for democracy,” said the President. He added that when he leaves the Presidency in 2028, he would continue active in the role of a guardian of democracy in the Americas.
He mentioned the constitutional reform his government seeks to pass in Congress during his second term that would permanently impede a President be reelected more than two terms.
“We are going to avoid that in the future and introduce a transitory personal that says that I cannot reelect in 2028 and never return and give the example. It is a fight for democracy,” he said during the weekly press conference.
During the same press conference, Foreign Minister Roberto Martinez said the charge d’affaires of the Dominican Embassy in Venezuela had received a communication expressing that he had to leave immediately. The Dominican Republic has not sent an ambassador to Venezuela since 2018, when the country did not acknowledge the outcome of the election of that year that kept Maduro in power. Diario Libre reports the present staff at the Dominican Embassy in Venezuela is of 11 persons. There is also a staffed consular mission.
Regarding flights from Venezuela, these will continue at least for now. President Abinader said there are no plans to stop trade. The President and Foreign Minister says that Venezuela is a developing story and the country would take matters step by step as they develop. As would happen, on Monday, the government of Venezuela announced commercial flights are suspended as of Wednesday, 31 July.
During the press conference, President Luis Abinader announced that the country could possibly present the candidacy of Dominican Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez for the position of Organization of American States secretary general. Roberto Alvarez has already served as Dominican ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) based in Washington, D.C. The present secretary general was elected in March 2020 for a five-year term. President Abinader confirmed that it is the turn for a candidate from Central America or the Caribbean to head the OAS. Venezuela will continue to be an important topic for the Organization of American States.
Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa on Monday called for a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss the “delicate situation” in Venezuela, after Nicolas Maduro’s contested re-election.
Maduro, 61, was declared the victor of Sunday’s presidential election, however the opposition said they are the rightful winners of a poll tainted by fraud.
In the Dominican Republic, Deputy José Horacio Rodríguez joined the ranks of public figures who have cast doubt on the results released by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council that declared President Nicolás Maduro Moros the victor in the recent elections. “There is no ideological alignment that would allow me to defend the indefensible. The results published are not credible; the indications of a major fraud are more than evident,” the legislator from the Democratic Option Party posted on his X account.
TV talk show host Mariasela Alvarez dedicated most of her program on Monday, 29 July 2024 to explain what is happening in Venezuela and shared insights of Venezuelans in the Dominican Republic. She concluded that Maduro is “overripe.”
Diario Libre dedicated its cartoon and three editorials on 30 July to the Venezuelan election outcome.
Former Dominican President Leonel Fernandez tweeted a joint statement with former Colombian President Ernesto Samper recommending the National Electoral Council release all the detailed tally sheets from the recent presidential elections, which declared Nicolás Maduro the winner.
Fernandez and Samper were among a select group of invited international guests allowed to act as observers. The call for transparency was shared via Fernández’s social media account on X early Tuesday morning. Both Fernández and Samper emphasized that publishing the complete data, broken down by polling stations and voting centers, aligns with suggestions from the UN Secretary-General and the Carter Center, aiming to ensure the electoral process’s transparency. In a first statement carried by the media, former President Leonel Fernandez had commended the outcome for its lack of violence.
Read more:
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Diario Libre
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
Noticias SIN
Z101 Digital
El Dia
Listin Diario
CNN
DR1 News
30 July 2024