Caracas Chronicles

• Opposition parties announced on Tuesday that they’ll be participating in the November election, which would be their first participation since 2017, considering that it’s urgent to find solutions to the country’s situation: “We know these elections won’t be fair or conventional, the dictatorship has imposed severe obstacles that jeopardize the expression of change, however, we understand it will be a space for a useful battle.” 
  • The communique issued by the Unitary Platform also reads that it will lead to “free presidential and legislative elections.” 
  • The platform is composed of the main opposition parties and they called to vote using the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) spot on the ballot, recently made available by the National Electoral Council. They emphasized that they reached this decision after difficult deliberation processes.

• “The concessions we’ve achieved have been thanks to the negotiation. We don’t have all the guarantees, but we can’t say that we won’t participate if we don’t have 100% of the guarantees,” said Henry Ramos Allup, former speaker of the National Assembly and secretary-general of Acción Democrática. He admitted that the negotiation in Mexico has allowed solving issues like politicians being barred from running and said that almost all of them have been solved. He said the “opposition can’t keep living in a fantasy,” and that the fact that the opposition decided to sit down with chavismo in Mexico doesn’t mean that they recognize Nicolás. He also said that they’ll continue working on a way to get EU observation and the release of political prisoners. 

Read more about how How Internal Chavista Tensions Impact the Mexico Talks,  a comment from our PRR team extracted from last Friday’s report that dives deep into what’s going on behind closed doors as both government and opposition take on the Mexico talks and the November election.

Maduro celebrated the platform’s decision to compete in the elections and did so in an insidious way, meaning to cause some damage. He said that when the opposition nominates its candidates, they’d be recognizing the chavista National Assembly and the National Electoral Council. He also assured that on Friday, September 3rd, when they meet in Mexico, they’ll request lifting all sanctions against his government, PDVSA, returning control of assets and bank accounts and the gold at the Bank of England to be returned to the BCV. 

• In his first public statement after his arbitrary detention, Voluntad Popular leader Freddy Guevara explained that not disregarding the track record, it’s necessary to reach a negotiated solution and end political confrontation that has been going on for 20 years: “I’m sure we must start living together, not with dictatorial structures, but with all the political forces in the country. We must make all efforts to restore a democratic normalcy in this country,” he said and emphasized that concessions must be made and that we must keep putting pressure. 
  • Guevara assured that he’ll be committed to assuring the negotiation process goes well and pushing for the National Salvation Agreement. He said that many political prisoners are ill and condemned the death of Gabriel Medina, who had been sick for over a month and didn’t receive medical care. “I’ve spoken to Gerardo Blyde, to push and include the release of political prisoners,” he said. 

Read more about yesterday’s three relevant statements regarding the November election: The Electoral Fiesta Is On

• With 43.2 million cases and 1.4 million deaths, Latin America is the region that’s been most impacted by the pandemic, in sanitary and economic terms. 
• Médicos Unidos warned that the delta variant is present in at least six states, according to data collected by Dr. José Félix Oletta. The NGO demanded the regime declare a state of emergency and activate an urgent plan. 
• The Federation of University Professors Association (FAPUV) denounced the illegal appointment by the CNU of a rector for USB, after the death of Enrique Planchart. FAPUV considers it violates the University Law. 
• The president of FEDEAGRO, Celso Fantinel, assured the sector is producing between 20 and 25% of the domestic demand: the diesel fuel shortage is a determining factor, there’s fertilizer only because of the private sector’s effort and there’s contraband to Colombia. 

CEPAL reported that Venezuela will have negative growth (-4%) in 2021, one of the countries with the worst development alongside Nicaragua (2.5%), Cuba (2.2%) and Haiti (-1.3%). 

• Vice president Delcy Rodríguez welcomed the new CAF president Sergio Díaz-Granados. Rodríguez called for dialogue, integration and cooperation that would allow leaving differences and imbalance behind. 
• Venezuelan athletes made history in the Tokyo Paralympics 2020. Linda Pérez won first place in the T11 100 mts. race alongside her guide Cassiani Herrera and 20 minutes later, Lisbeli Vera won another gold medal in the T47 100 mts race. Vera had already won silver on Saturday, in the T47 400 mts race. Luis Felipe Rodríguez won silver in the T20 400 mts race and Alejandra Pérez won bronze in the T12 400 mts race, with her guide Daniel Manzanilla. Alejandra and Linda are twins. Norkelys González won an Olympic diploma, she made 6th place in the T20 400 mts. 
• The film adaptation of Eduardo Sánchez Rugeles’s book Blue Label/Etiqueta Azul (2010), Dirección opuesta, will represent Venezuela in the Goya Awards. The film was directed by Alejandro Bellame and will compete to be nominated in the Best Ibero-American Movie.