CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s government will not allow election observers from the European Union to serve during its 2024 presidential elections, a top ruling party lawmaker said on Thursday.
President Nicolas Maduro is expected to run in the contest next year, while the opposition is planning to hold a primary in October to chose a unity candidate.
The opposition has long decried what it says are undemocratic conditions for elections and several of its top primary candidates have already been barred by the government from holding public office.
“I tell you Josep Borrell, there won’t be any observation mission from Europe while we are the representatives of the Venezuelan state. They will not come,” Jorge Rodriguez, president of the government-allied National Assembly said during the body’s regular Thursday session, referring to the European Union’s foreign policy chief.
Rodriguez accused the EU of violating a deal signed with the Venezuelan government and observers of being “representatives of an archaic, murderous, imperial Europe.”
The EU’s delegation in Caracas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A EU observation mission said after the country’s 2021 regional elections that electoral conditions had improved in comparison to previous votes, but that Venezuela must reinforce its separation of powers, especially the independence of its judicial branch.
Maduro, whose 2018 re-election was decried by many in the international community as fraudulent, branded the observers spies.
Prior to the 2021 elections, the EU had not sent electoral observers to Venezuela since 2006.
Some members of the opposition criticized the participation of EU observers, arguing their presence implicitly legitimized the elections.
(Reporting by Mayela Armas and Vivian Sequera; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Oliver Griffin; Editing by Sandra Maler)
