Among them, the European Union, highly criticized by Chavismo after its observation in the 2021 regional elections, the UN panel of electoral experts, the African Union, the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations and the Carter Center.
The agreement talks about allowing all candidates “as long as they meet the established requirements to participate in presidential re-election, consistent with the procedures established in Venezuelan law.”
The head of delegation of the government of Venezuela, Jorge Rodríguez, said that if an applicant has been disqualified he will not be able to be a candidate for the presidency, whose date would be in the second half of 2024.
Each party can choose a candidate according to its internal rules, the agreement added, days before the opposition holds its primaries on October 22. The favorite is María Corina Machado, who has been disqualified from running for public office since the middle of this year.
The agreements are expected to pave the way for the United States to provide some flexibility from oil-related sanctions.
Washington has long said it would lift some of its sanctions on Nicolás Maduro’s government in exchange for democratic concessions from the president. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tuesday’s meeting, held on the Caribbean island of Barbados, was the first in 11 months between the parties.
The talks, aimed at providing a way out of Venezuela’s protracted political and economic crisis, will continue at an as yet undetermined date, according to the agreement.
Maduro, president since 2013, is expected to run for re-election, but has not yet formalized the candidacy. His government has banned prominent opposition figures from running, such as front-runner María Corina Machado.
Following the agreement, the government of US President Joe Biden is expected to announce some type of limited, but significant, easing of sanctions, according to US sources.
The sources added, however, that any sanctions relief would be reversible if Maduro fails to do so.
Maduro – who in the process is calling for the lifting of sanctions against his government – announced on Monday that the agreements would be “beneficial for the country.”
The dialogue process between the government and the opposition Unitary Platform coalition began in August 2021 and since then has been interrupted twice, the last in November 2022, after Maduro’s delegation conditioned the dialogue on the disbursement of 3,000 million. of dollars of frozen Venezuelan funds abroad.
With information from AFP and Reuters