Leading members of Venezuela’s opposition and human rights activists said Thursday that international pressure and monitoring are vital to ensure the government of President Nicolas Maduro allows free and fair elections in December’s parliamentary vote.
“Venezuela is not a democracy,” said Lillian Tintori, wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, said in a briefing at the National Press Club in Washington.
Jared Genser, a lawyer who represented political prisoners, called for the international community to shine a “bright light” on Venezuela in the coming weeks to expose potential abuses by the Maduro government.
“Speaking the truth in Venezuela can result in your imprisonment, your torture, and even your murder,” Mr. Genser told the Washington briefing.
Polls show the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) under Mr. Maduro, a protege of the late populist leader Hugo Chavez, is trailing in the Dec. 6 vote, and opposition parties warn that impartial outside monitors are vital to protect the integrity of the voting process. An opposition majority could undermine Mr. Maduro’s hopes of serving out his term through 2019.
The Maduro government this week also projected that the country’s inflation rate, already the world’s highest, would be 85 percent in 2015 and 60 percent next year.
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The Reuters news service quoted government critics who say Venezuela’s runaway price rises — together with product shortages and a shrinking economy — are evidence of a failed socialist model of price and currency controls combined with hostility towards the private sector. Mr. Maduro has also been accused of jailing opposition leaders and trying to control the media.
Brazil announced this week it would not participate in a South American mission to observe the election, citing what it said were a lack of guarantees by the socialist government and the inability to name an independent head of the delegation.
Anti-government activists said it was also important that the press turn out in force to write about the election.
“Since [my husband] has been temporarily silenced, I speak on his behalf,” Ms. Tintori said, describing how her husband spends his day in a 7-by-10-foot cell with a bed and a toilet, but no writing materials or books except the Bible, and no light.
“We need the media to cover our stories and amplify our voice all over the world,” said Ms. Tintori.
• Meghan Bartlett can be reached at mbartlett@washingtontimes.com.
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