International
The OAS convenes an extraordinary meeting to address the electoral process in Venezuela
The Organization of American States (OAS), based in Washington, convened an extraordinary meeting to discuss the results of the elections in Venezuela, questioned by the Venezuelan opposition and several countries in the region.
The session of the Permanent Council, which will take place on Wednesday, was convened at the request of twelve member countries, including all the Latin American governments that the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, ordered today to withdraw their diplomatic staff in Caracas.
So far, the organization has not pronounced on the elections, amid the rejection by the international community and the Venezuelan opposition on the results delivered by the National Electoral Council (CNE) that gave victory today to the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro.
Hours earlier, the governments of Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic expressed their deep concern about the development of the presidential elections in Venezuela and called for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS).
In a joint statement, the countries demand the complete review of the electoral results and emphasize the need for the presence of independent electoral observers to ensure respect for the will of the Venezuelan people, who participated massively and peacefully in the elections.
“The vote count must be transparent and the results should not cast doubt,” the statement says.
Faced with the situation, the governments of these countries announced that they will request an urgent meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) with the aim of issuing a resolution that safeguards the popular will, framed in the Democratic Charter and the fundamental principles of democracy in the region.
With this call to the OAS, the aforementioned countries seek to ensure that democratic values are respected and a fair and transparent electoral process is guaranteed in Venezuela. The signatories consider the intervention of the OAS to resolve the situation and maintain democratic stability in the region to be crucial.
The joint statement reflects the growing international concern about the situation in Venezuela and the determination of these governments to take concrete measures to ensure that the will of the Venezuelan people is respected and that democratic principles prevail.
In its first report, the National Electoral Council (CNE) gave the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, as the winner with 51.20% of the votes, compared to 44.20% of the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia, with 80% counted.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado said that the “new president-elect” is the candidate of the Democratic United Platform (PUD) block, since, she said, with more than 40% of the minutes transmitted by the electoral body, she obtained 70% of the votes, while Maduro, 30%.
For its part, the Government of Peru expelled the Venezuelan diplomats accredited in Peru and gave them a maximum period of 72 hours to leave the country.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that this measure was ordered by the Peruvian Foreign Minister, Javier González-Olaechea, “due to the serious and arbitrary decisions taken today by the Venezuelan regime.”
He added that González-Olaechea “has instructed that the accredited Venezuelan diplomatic functions in Peru be notified that they must leave the country within no more than 72 hours.”
The decision was announced hours after the Government of Venezuela demanded from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay “the immediate withdrawal of their representatives in Venezuelan territory,” in rejection of their “interrenistic actions and statements” about Sunday’s presidential elections.
The Executive of Nicolás Maduro also indicated in a statement that he has decided to “withdraw all diplomatic personnel from the missions” in these seven Latin American countries.
This was due to what he considered “the interference actions and statements of a group of right-wing governments, subordinate to Washington and openly committed to the most sordid ideological postulates of international fascism, (…) that pretend to ignore the electoral results.”
On Monday, the Governments of Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic expressed their deep concern about the development of the elections in Venezuela, for which they demanded the complete review of the results and called for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The National Electoral Council (CNE) officially proclaimed Maduro as the winner on Monday, after he announced on Sunday night that he obtained 51.2% of the votes, the same result that he gave when 80% of the minutes had been counted and in the absence of more than two million votes to count.
For his part, the candidate of the majority opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia, obtained 44.2% of the votes, according to the first and only public report of the CNE, which did not specify which candidates have gone to the 2,394,268 votes that were not reported.
International
Trump appoints Stallone, Voight, and Gibson as special ambassadors to Hollywood
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday the appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone (‘Rocky’) and Jon Voight (‘Midnight Cowboy’), as well as actor and director Mel Gibson (‘Braveheart’) as special ambassadors to the “very problematic” Hollywood.
“They will help me as special envoys to make Hollywood, which has lost many overseas businesses in the last four years, COME BACK BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER,” he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.
The Republican lamented all the “problems” he claims Hollywood faces and created this role with the aim of improving the situation from a business perspective.
“These three talented men will be my eyes and ears. I will do whatever they suggest,” he said.
Stallone had previously described Trump as the second George Washington, the first U.S. president (1789–1797) and one of the nation’s founding fathers, during a dinner after his victory in the November presidential elections, where he served as the master of ceremonies.
Meanwhile, Gibson attacked Trump’s rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing her of having “the IQ of a fence.”
The Republican leader will be sworn in as president on January 20 on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, succeeding Democrat Joe Biden.
International
Latin American and Caribbean diplomats voice concern over U.S. mass deportation plan
Diplomatic chiefs from ten Latin American and Caribbean countries expressed their “serious concern” over the announcement of a mass deportation of migrants, a measure they consider incompatible with human rights, according to a joint statement released this Friday.
The statement, which does not attribute the measure to any specific country, refers to the announcement made by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to carry out the largest foreign deportation operation in the history of the nation once he takes office next Monday. “The announcements of mass deportations are a serious cause for concern, especially due to their incompatibility with the fundamental principles of human rights and their failure to effectively address the structural causes of migration,” the statement said, released by Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE).
The signing countries—Brazil, Belize, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela (almost all migrant-sending nations)—also committed to “defend the human rights of all migrants.”
This includes “rejecting the criminalization of migrants at all stages of the migration cycle” and “protecting them as a priority from transnational organized crime that profits from migration,” the document adds.
International
Noboa once again entrusts the Vice President of Ecuador to the vice president he appointed by decree
The President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, returned this Thursday to delegate – for the second time – the Presidency to the Secretary of Public Administration and Cabinet of the Presidency Cynthia Gellibert, whom he himself appointed by decree vice president in charge, in the face of the open confrontation he maintains with the vice president, Verónica Abad.
As he did last week, Noboa again issued a decree in which he announces that he is absent from the Presidency from Thursday to Sunday, to make an electoral campaign in search of his re-election in the elections of February 9, and during that period of time it will be Gellibert who will be in charge of the head of the State.
This action of the president of Ecuador is a matter of evaluation by the ordinary and constitutional justice at the request of the vice president, Verónica Abad, who claims to assume the presidential functions during the full period of the electoral campaign, in which according to the Constitution the head of state must ask for leave for being a candidate for re-election.
In his decree, Noboa argues that, although the Constitution determines that the Vice Presidency must assume the head of State in the event of the absence of the president, this “is not limited to the elected vice-president, but to the person who to date is exercising the functions of the Vice Presidency.”
Before appointing Gellibert as vice president in charge by decree, Noboa sent Abad to the Ecuadorian Embassy in Turkey, after a judge annulled the five-month suspension that the same Government had imposed on him. Until now, the vice president remains in Ecuador to claim to be the one who temporarily assumes the Presidency.
The new period of Gellibert with presidential powers began at 18:00 local time (23:00 GMT) this Thursday and is scheduled to end at 22:00 (03:00 GMT) next Sunday, time at which the debate between presidential candidates is expected to end where Noboa is summoned to participate.
After the debate, Noboa plans to travel to Washington to attend Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration, according to the Ecuadorian Presidency.
After the first assignment of the Presidency to Gellibert, Abad denounced a “coup d’état” and urged the Organization of American States (OAS) to apply the Democratic Charter, considering that the constitutional order had been broken because it had not received the presidential powers, as contemplated in the Ecuadorian Constitution.
In addition, he filed a protection action with which he seeks that the Justice annul the decrees in which Noboa appointed Gellibert as vice president in charge and delegated the Presidency to him. A court admitted the appeal on Friday, but did not accept some precautionary measures that Abad also asked for to suspend those effects immediately.
Controversies like this will be part of the analysis and evaluation of the electoral observation mission (EOM) of the European Union (EU) for the Ecuadorian elections, as anticipated on Wednesday by its leader, Spanish MEP Gabriel Mato.
The confrontation between Noboa and Abad began in the electoral campaign for the second round of elections for the extraordinary elections of 2023, and was reflected when he assumed the charges, when in one of his first decisions, the president sent the vice president to Israel as ambassador, with the mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Abad has denounced Noboa for alleged political gender violence and has accused her of leading a harassment against her to force her to resign and thus avoid having to delegate the Presidency to her during the electoral campaign period, which runs from January 5 to February 6.
The titular vice president has also accused the Government of being behind the corruption investigation in the offices of the Vice Presidency that involves her son in a case where the Prosecutor’s Office also sought to indict Abad, but the National Assembly (Parliament) voted mostly against lifting the jurisdiction, although the ruling party voted in favor.
The general elections in Ecuador are called for Sunday, February 9 and, according to the polls published so far, Noboa and the candidate of the correismo Luisa González appear as prominent favorites to move on to the second round.
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