Panama’s Foreign Ministry summoned Venezuela’s representative after preventing plane carrying former presidents from taking off

• Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino reported that a flight carrying several former presidents was prevented from going to Venezuela

The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the representative of the Venezuelan diplomatic mission on Friday, July 26, after a plane carrying several former presidents who were going to Venezuela to participate as electoral observers in the July 28 elections was unable to take off.

“The Foreign Ministry has summoned the representative of the diplomatic mission of Venezuela in Panama to the Bolívar Palace (the headquarters of the ministry),” said the Panamanian foreign minister, Javier Martínez-Acha, on his X account, citing the Panamanian president’s publication where he reported that the plane was not allowed to leave.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino reported that a Copa Airlines plane carrying former Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso and other former presidents to Venezuela was not “allowed to take off from Tocumen while they remain on board, due to the blockade of Venezuelan airspace. Likewise, another Copa flight to Panama from Caracas has not been allowed to take off.”

Photo: @tutoquiroga

Former presidents prevented from leaving Panama

The former presidents are part of the Freedom and Democracy Group, made up of the Dominican president, Luis Abinader, and the former presidents of the Spanish government, José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy; as well as the former presidents Mario Abdo Benítez, from Paraguay; Jeanine Áñez and Jorge Quiroga, from Bolivia; Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox, from Mexico, and Iván Duque and Andrés Pastrana, from Colombia.

Former presidents Osvaldo Hurtado, Jamil Mahuad and Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador; Rafael Calderón and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez of Costa Rica; and Mauricio Macri of Argentina; as well as Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó and former governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuño, are also part of this initiative.

Caracas’ decision to prevent some of them from leaving Panama comes after the Freedom and Democracy Group said in a statement on Wednesday that any attempt at fraud in Venezuela’s presidential elections must be sanctioned by the international community.

“Any attempt at fraud must be punished with the maximum sanctions, and effective international prosecution must be carried out against Nicolás Maduro and his closest circle,” said Libertad y Democracia.

Previous statements

Ten candidates will participate in Sunday’s elections, including Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, the candidate of the opposition coalition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) and who leads the voting intention, according to traditional pollsters.

Despite the obstacles imposed by the dictatorship, an electoral process will be held on July 28 in which figures such as María Corina Machado and Corina Lloris have been disqualified. Today, Edmundo González has unified the resistance, thanks to the leadership of María Corina Machado, showing broad popular support in the face of scant support for the dictator,” the former presidents said in the statement.

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They also expressed confidence that Venezuela will embark on a new “path to democracy” that will bring about a “political, economic and social rebirth after years of the region’s greatest migration crisis.”

The Liberty and Democracy Group warned that given the reality facing Venezuela, there are only two possible scenarios on July 28: “the resounding triumph of democratic effervescence or the abusive theft of the elections by the dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro.”

With information from EFE

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