International
How Latin America has reacted: from the rejection of Chile and Argentina waiting for Brazil and Mexico
After knowing the results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela on the presidential elections that, according to the entity, was won by President Nicolás Maduro, there have been various reactions in Latin America from the request for transparency of Chile and Argentina to the caution of Brazil and Mexico.
One of the first to react was the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, who at first said that the results “are difficult to believe” and on Monday he claimed that it is necessary to deliver all the electoral records to both independent international observers and the opposition.
“As long as that is not done, we as a country are going to refrain from recognizing what the National Electoral Council has pointed out,” Boric said.
“I have stated, and I have also discussed it with the chancellor and with different people in Latin America and in the world, that the elections, and elections that generate as much expectation as this, have to be absolutely transparent and verifiable by international observers who are not dependent or supporters of the Government,” added the Chilean leader.
The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, described on Monday the results of this Sunday’s presidential elections in Venezuela as an “electoral scam” and ignored the announcement of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of that country, which gave Nicolás Maduro as the winner, results that the opposition denounced for irregular.
“Not even he believes the electoral scam that celebrates. Neither does the Argentine Republic,” the Argentine president wrote about Maduro on his profile on the social network X.
“We do not recognize fraud, we call on the international community to unite to restore the rule of law in Venezuela, and we remind the Venezuelan people that the doors of our homeland are open to every man who chooses to live in freedom,” added the publication of the ultraliberal politician.
“Condemn the electoral fraud perpetrated by the regime of dictator Nicolás Maduro in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Argentina demands total transparency in the counting of votes. We are not going to consolidate any results without the support of international observers; of course, that they are not puppets of the Chavista regime,” the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, said earlier.
The Government of Brazil celebrated on Monday the “peaceful character” of the elections in Venezuela, but ratified that it will wait for all the results to pronounce on the victory attributed by the electoral authorities to Nicolás Maduro.
In an official statement, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “reaffirms” that “the principle of popular sovereignty must be observed through the impartial verification of the results” and adds that Brazil “waits, in that context,” the publication of all the data “detailed by a polling station.”
That last requirement, according to the statement, is “an indispensable step for the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the result of the electoral lawsuit.”
In the same waiting line, the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, spoke out, who said that he will recognize Maduro’s triumph, if Venezuela’s CNE “confirms the trend” after Sunday’s elections, although he asked to “wait for the count.”
“We are going to wait for the result, and when the count has been carried out, see what the legal process is and then we are going to pronounce, if the electoral authority confirms this trend, we are going to recognize the Government elected by the people of Venezuela,” López Obrador said in his morning conference.
The Mexican ruler assured that “they cannot ignore any result” of the CNE, which during the night announced that Maduro won with 51.2% of the votes compared to 44.2% by Edmundo González Urrutia of the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) of Venezuela.
The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, announced that he “suspends” diplomatic relations and announces the withdrawal of his diplomatic corps in Venezuela “until a complete review of the minutes” of the votes is carried out after rejecting the results of the elections.
Mulino, who pointed out the “deterioration” during the last years of diplomatic relations between the two countries, said: “I make this decision out of respect for the history of Panama, the millions of Venezuelans who chose our homeland to live, and my democratic convictions, I cannot allow my silence to turn into complicity.”
“I believe, and I hope I am wrong, that the flow of Venezuelans will increase for obvious reasons and we have to take the appropriate decisions to safeguard their life and integrity,” Mulino said.
At the same time, the Government of Peru denounced the attempt of the Venezuelan authorities to “consolidate a fraud” and detailed that it remains “in active observation” in the face of the possible “migratory effects” of the announcement of the re-election of Nicolás Maduro.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that, along with other competent authorities, it is “in a state of active observation in anticipation of migratory effects as a result of the seriousness of the course of Venezuelan electoral events.”
The president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, was one of the first leaders in the region to react and considered that Maduro’s “victory” is a “great way” to remember the late leader Hugo Chávez on his birthday.
“We congratulate the Venezuelan people and President @NicolasMaduro for the electoral victory of this historic July 28. Great way to remember Commander Hugo Chávez,” Arce wrote on the social network X, where earlier he recalled in another message the 70th anniversary of the birth of the former Venezuelan president.
Arce, who has a political affinity with Maduro, also maintained that he followed “closely” the “democratic party” in Venezuela and greeted “that the will of the Venezuelan people has been respected at the polls.”
The congratulations were also joined by the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, who described the result as a “great victory that that heroic people” delivers to Chávez, while the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel considered it as a “triumph of dignity.”
For its part, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) congratulated Maduro, for what he sees as an “unobjectible triumph” in the presidential elections.
“The member states of the ALBA congratulate the people and government of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, for the unobjectionable triumph of President Nicolás Maduro Moros in the presidential elections this Sunday, July 28, 2024,” the bloc said in a statement published on its website.
International
Mexican government prioritizes 191 communities after deadly floods
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed on Wednesday that the death toll from recent rains and floods across several central states has risen to 66, while the federal government has activated air bridges and prioritized assistance in 191 isolated communities.
“Unfortunately, 66 people have died, and 75 remain missing,” the president said during her morning press conference. She added that the official death toll will be updated later in a new report.
As of Tuesday, authorities had reported 64 fatalities. Sheinbaum also announced the creation of a public information center to centralize official data on the deceased, missing persons, damaged homes, and cut-off communities.
According to the president, the number of missing persons has decreased thanks to coordination with state authorities.
“Through calls to phone line 079, 103 people who had been reported missing have now been located,” she explained.
Priority Municipalities
The president noted that the federal government has classified 191 communities as ‘priority’, a designation based mainly on the percentage of homes affected.
International
New road and bridge explosions raise alarm amid indigenous protests in Ecuador
Ecuadorian authorities are investigating two explosions that occurred early Wednesday, one on a road in the southern part of the country and another under a bridge in Guayas province. These incidents follow the car bomb explosion in the coastal city of Guayaquil, also in Guayas, which occurred the day before and left one person dead and 30 injured.
Press reports indicate that one person was injured and several vehicles were damaged in the explosion on the Cuenca-Girón-Pasaje road in the south.
“Besides yesterday’s explosion in Guayaquil, we have received reports of explosives placed on bridges along the Guayaquil-Machala and Machala-Cuenca routes to disrupt traffic,” said Roberto Luque, Minister of Infrastructure and Transport (MIT).
On his X social media account, Luque reported that authorities have been deployed to the sites to assess the damage and determine the current condition of the structures.
“What they haven’t achieved with their call for a strike, some are trying to achieve through terrorism,” he stated, referring to the 24 days of protests organized by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities (Conaie) against rising diesel prices and other demands.
The protests, called at a national level, have Imbabura province as their epicenter. Roadblocks have also been reported in the northern part of Pichincha province, whose capital is Quito, while activities in the rest of the country continue normally.
International
Armed forces target illegal mines in Northern Ecuador with bombing raids
Ecuador’s Armed Forces carried out an operation on Monday — including airstrikes — against illegal mining in the town of Buenos Aires, in the country’s north, Defense Minister Gian Carlo Loffredo reported.
The mountainous, gold-rich area has been a hotspot for illegal mining since 2017, located in the Andean province of Imbabura.
In 2019, former president Lenín Moreno deployed around 2,400 soldiers to the region in an attempt to curb the illegal activity. “The operation began with mortar fire, followed by gunfire and bombing runs by Supertucano aircraft,” Loffredo said in a video released by the Defense Ministry.
He added that the operation would continue on Tuesday with patrols across the area to locate possible members of “irregular armed groups that may have crossed from the Colombian border.”
The Armed Forces stated on X that the intervention focused on the “complete elimination of multiple illegal mining tunnels” in the areas known as Mina Nueva and Mina Vieja.
The operation coincided with the deployment of a military and police convoy into Imbabura, which has been the epicenter of protests against President Daniel Noboa since September 22, following his decision to scrap the diesel subsidy.
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