MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Lacalle Pou stands by Machado ahead of Sunday's elections

Lacalle praised the courage of the Venezuelan people in this hour

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou held a conversation with Venezuelan leader María Corina Machado in the hours leading to Sunday's presidential elections that could bring Nicolás Maduro's regime to an end.

“I just had a conversation with the President of Uruguay, @LuisLacallePou, whom I thanked for his permanent support and solidarity with our struggle for democracy and freedom,” Machado posted on X. ”Hours away from 28J, he ratified me his commitment to the values that unite us and conveyed me his admiration..(...)“ in addition to his praise ”for the great example of civic courage that Venezuelans give to the world,“ she added from her @MariaCorinaYA account.

”Your commitment and effort for the Venezuelan cause is admirable,“ the Multicolor sitting president replied. ”We have said it over and over again: free elections, respect for human rights and full democracy.“

Upon taking up Mercosur's rotating presidency on July 8, Lacalle noted that ”We all have different approaches to the Venezuelan government, some of us consider it a dictatorship and others do not. But in order to help and cooperate, it seems to me that there are countries here that can do a lot in this electoral process, for the good of the people, and may the winner be the one who has to win. The heart of each one will tell.“

On Feb. 1 right after Machado was banned from running, Lacalle Pou said that under those conditions the Venezuelan elections would be anything but ”free and democratic“ because her suppression was a sign that there was ”no will“ for the elections to be transparent.

Earlier this week, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Omar Paganini voiced his government's concerns about the upcoming process in Venezuela amid numerous events raising doubts as to Maduro's intention to admit whatever outcome.

”It is enough to listen to the declarations of the government, which say that if they lose there will be a bloodbath,“ Pagani stressed in line with similar messages from Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Chile's Gabriel Boric Font.

But this time around the situation is different from previous elections because ”we see the people very mobilized and with great hope for change.”

Machado, who has been disenfranchised on judiciary grounds, is endorsing the candidacy of 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo Gonález Urrutia on behalf of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) alliance.

Uruguayan presidential hopeful and a former aide to Lacalle Pou Álvaro Delgado released a joint statement he signed with the other candidates from the ruling Multicolor Coalition: “The conditions of next Sunday's elections, where there are exiles, political prisoners, harassment of the opposition and the disqualification of the main opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, do not guarantee a democratic process.” Signing the statement were also Andrés Ojeda (Colorado Party), Guido Manini Ríos (Cabildo Abierto), and Pablo Mieres (Independent Party).