What changed

B90107/2024

B90111/2024

European Parliament resolution on further repression against the democratic forces in Venezuela: attackattacks on presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado

(2024/2549(RSP))

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Venezuela,

– having regard to the statement by the Spokesperson of the European External Action Service of 29 January 2024 on banning opposition politicians,

– having regard to the Partial Agreement on the Promotion of Political Rights and Electoral Guarantees for All, signed by the Maduro government and the Venezuelan opposition alliance, the Unitary Platform, in October 2023 (Barbados Agreement),

– having regard to the final report of the EU Election Observation Mission to Venezuela of 22 February 2022 entitled ‘Regional and municipal elections 21 November 2021’ and the statement by the President of the Electoral Observation Delegation of the European Parliament, Jordi Cañas, of 23 November 2021 on the regional and local elections in Venezuela in 2021,

– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas in the Barbados Agreement, the parties committed to recognise and respect the right of each political actor to choose their candidate for the presidential elections freely and in line with their internal mechanisms;

A. whereas on 17 October 2023, the Venezuelan regime reached a deal (the Partial Agreement on the Promotion of Political Rights and Electoral Guarantees for All, known as the ‘Barbados Agreement’) with the political opposition to hold elections during the second half of 2024; whereas this agreement covered important topics such as allowing international observers to participate in the electoral process; whereas the agreement was signed to serve as a first step to ensure free and fair elections in Venezuela;

B. whereas in October 2023, the opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado won the presidential primary for the Unitary Platform with 92.35 % of the votes;

B. whereas in October 2023, opposition parties held primary elections and María Corina Machado was elected as the opposition presidential candidate, by a large majority; whereas days later, the attorney general’s office launched an investigation into the organising committee of the primaries for alleged fraud; whereas the pro-regime Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) suspended all effects regarding the result;

C. whereas on 26 January 2024, the Supreme Court of Venezuela upheld the arbitrary ban that prevents presidential candidate Maria Corina Machado from holding office and registering her candidacy for the presidential elections expected to take place in the second half of 2024;

C. whereas on 26 January 2024, the TSJ reviewed and maintained the 15-year disqualification imposed previously against María Corina Machado; whereas this ongoing arbitrary disqualification, together with the disqualifications imposed on other prominent Venezuelan opposition figures such as Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles, among others, severely restrict the rights of Venezuelans to choose their representatives, strongly undermining the principles of democracy and the right to political participation, and making impossible the holding of free and fair elections;

D. whereas the Maduro regime has disqualified several other opposition politicians throughout the years to prevent political change, including Henrique Capriles, who has run for president twice in the past and whose disqualification was also confirmed in the same Supreme Court ruling;

D. whereas in its resolution of 13 July 2023 on the political disqualifications in Venezuela, Parliament already strongly condemned the political disqualifications of candidates by the Venezuelan regime; whereas this resolution specifically condemned the arbitrary and unconstitutional 15-year disqualification of María Corina Machado and other prominent political figures and deplored the fact that the recommendations of the last EU election observation mission (EOM) had been completely ignored;

E. whereas the administrative authorities’ ongoing arbitrary disqualification of opposition electoral candidates severely restrict the right of Venezuelans to choose their representatives;

E. whereas the United States, the Organization of American States, bodies of the UN, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and many other countries and international institutions, have condemned the political repression practised by the Venezuelan regime through the political disqualification of opposition leaders, in some cases denouncing such actions as being characteristic of authoritarian regimes;

F. whereas prior to the confirmed disqualification of Maria Corina Machado, the regime tirelessly hounded members of her party and campaign team and other political opponents and criminalised the work of lawyers and human rights defenders;

F. whereas the United States has also stated its deep concern over the Venezuelan regime’s interference in the composition of the National Electoral Council (CNE); whereas the regime-controlled National Assembly elected all new members of the CNE in August 2023; whereas new CNE members include Elvis Amoroso, who, as comptroller general, disqualified opposition candidates, and Carlos Quintero, whom the United States sanctioned in 2017 for his role in weakening elections; whereas an independent, impartial and fully functioning CNE is indispensable for free and fair elections;

G. whereas on 6 December 2023, Roberto Abdul, a member of the commission that planned the opposition primaries, was arrested for alleged treason; whereas at the same time, arrest warrants were issued for Henry Alviarez, Claudia Macero and Pedro Urruchurtu, members of the Vente Venezuela party, for alleged crimes including treason, conspiracy and money laundering;

G. whereas the disqualifications of opposition candidates by the Venezuelan regime severely breach the political rights and electoral guarantees signed in the Barbados Agreement;

H. whereas on 23 January 2024, Maria Corina Machado made a call during a public rally for the electoral calendar to be established; whereas on the same day, three political regional coordinators of her political party Vente Venezuela, Guillermo López, Luis Camacaro and Juan Freites, were detained and have since been reported missing;

H. whereas similar electoral meddling in Venezuela was highlighted in the report by the UN EOM on the regional and municipal elections for executive and legislative positions in November 2021; whereas previous elections, including the 2018 presidential contest, have not received official recognition amid allegations of widespread intimidation and irregularities;

I. whereas on January 22, 14 arrest warrants were issued against civilians and former military personnel in exile for allegedly conspiring against the government, including human rights activist and lawyer Tamara Sujú and journalist Sebastiana Barráez;

I. whereas the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition reported the presence of armed groups in 21 % of polling stations across the country during the 2018 presidential elections; whereas elections in the past have been overshadowed by violence against and intimidation of potential voters, such as the murder of a citizen in a polling station in the state of Zulia by gangs and other armed groups loyal to the Venezuelan regime; whereas armed groups have spread fear in both rural and urban areas, attacking voters and candidates, manipulating election results and restricting access to voting centres by imposing absolute territorial control;

J. whereas the Venezuelan Parliament, which is controlled by the Maduro regime, has been preparing a new law on the financing and performance of non-governmental organisations in order to limit civil society’s ability to get organised and defend their rights;

J. whereas the abovementioned armed groups include the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Patriotic Forces of National Liberation (FPLN), and groups that emerged from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), operating mostly in border states and brutally enforcing curfews and regulations governing everyday activities;

K. whereas on 31 January, Maduro backed a call from the regime-controlled National Assembly to develop a proposal, starting from 5 February and in dialogue with various sectors, for an electoral schedule for the presidential elections, expected in the second half of 2024, but still without a definite date;

K. whereas the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro has built a system of governance characterised by an alliance between the government and organised crime networks over the past years; whereas this is a symbiotic relationship, whereby non-state armed groups provide senior members of the regime with access to and total control over their areas of influence; whereas, in return, the regime tolerates, and in some cases actively protects, the activities of these groups; whereas the proper functioning of this system of governance maintains President Nicolás Maduro in power;

L. whereas the Barbados Agreement remains the most viable mechanism to resolve Venezuela’s long-standing political, economic and humanitarian crises and to conduct competitive, free and inclusive elections in Venezuela;

L. whereas the Venezuelan regime is supported by international actors and countries, such as Cuba and Nicaragua, most of them represented in the Foro de Sao Paulo and the Grupo de Puebla; whereas Venezuela, together with Cuba, is Russia’s most important trading, political and military ally in Latin America;

M. whereas the 2024 presidential elections have the potential to mark a turning point from corrupt autocracy towards a return to democracy, if all the points in the Barbados Agreement are respected;

M. whereas the latest actions of the Venezuelan regime replicate the same patterns of abuse and waves of repression already used by President Nicolás Maduro and his allies; whereas this repression includes the unjust arrest of a dozen opposition members, including former National Assembly leader Juan Guaidó and three campaign staffers of presidential candidate María Corina Machado, all three of them held against their will in an unknown location;

N. whereas the regime has also been making changes to the National Electoral Council to hamper the electoral process and quash any prospect of a return to democracy; whereas in June 2023, three principal rectors of the National Electoral Council stepped down, forcing the resignation of the two remaining rectors; whereas the regime-controlled National Assembly appointed a special commission composed of representatives of the regime, including the wife of Nicolás Maduro, to elect the new rectors;

N. whereas the Venezuelan authorities have in recent years been harassing, persecuting and arbitrarily jailing politicians and civil society representatives such as union workers, journalists and human rights defenders, among many others;

O. whereas Venezuela is experiencing institutional, economic and political instability; whereaswhereas, according to the UNlegal Highaid Commissionerorganisation forForo Refugees,Penal, more than 7.715 million800 people have been forcedsubjected to leavepolitically motivated arrests since 2014, and morearound could270 follow;remain in detention;

1. Strongly condemns the Venezuelan Supreme Court’s arbitrary, unconstitutional and politically motivated decision to disqualify Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the democratic opposition’s primary, and ban her from participating in the presidential elections; recalls that the process to reinstate her lacked basic elements, as she neither received a copy of the allegations against her nor was afforded the opportunity to respond to the allegations;

P. whereas the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and its international fact-finding mission (FFM) have been documenting cases for many years, including numerous killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, instances of torture and ill-treatment against opponents of the Maduro regime;

2. Strongly condemns the attacks against, alleged forced disappearances and arrests of and arrest warrants issued for members of her team and other representatives of the opposition and civil society, as well as human rights defenders and journalists; strongly condemns the Maduro regime’s interference in the electoral process;

Q. whereas judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) have found that Venezuelan courts are not continuing to investigate possible crimes against humanity; whereas the ICC has therefore resumed its own investigations; whereas the FFM has affirmed that it has reasonable grounds to believe that far from dismantling structures involved in abuses, Venezuelan authorities have promoted individuals responsible for them;

3. Reiterates that actions by Nicolás Maduro and his representatives, including the persecution of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election, are inconsistent with the Barbados Agreement, signed by representatives of Nicolás Maduro’s government and the Unitary Platform, with a view to holding a competitive Venezuelan presidential election in 2024;

R. whereas President Nicolás Maduro’s most recent campaign of repression has been implemented through the ‘Bolivarian Fury’ plan (Furia Bolivariana), which involves the deployment of military and police troops to ‘thwart any terrorist and coup attempts, no matter how they are presented’; whereas, as a consequence, the headquarters of numerous opposition political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have become the targets of vandalism, often featuring graffiti reading ‘Bolivarian Fury’;

4. Urges the Venezuelan regime to revoke the bans on holding office that it imposed on the opposition primary winner and thus fully legitimate candidate Maria Corina Machado and other opposition politicians, and to start implementing the Barbados Agreement, including by upholding the electoral roadmap’s principles and paragraph one of the agreement, which outlines that the parties are bound to ‘recognise and respect the right of each political actor to choose their candidate for the presidential elections freely’, which would entail ensuring that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado can participate freely in a competitive and truly democratic presidential election in 2024;

S. whereas amid these attacks, the regime also announced that the National Constituent Assembly would soon pass a law giving the executive branch broad powers to control, register, sanction and dissolve NGOs; whereas this law will serve to further restrict civil liberties; whereas the Venezuelan authorities have stigmatised, harassed and repressed the media, closing dissenting outlets; whereas the civil society organisation Espacio Público reported 261 violations of freedom of expression in 2023, with censorship and intimidation being the most common;

5. Urges the Venezuelan regime to immediately stop persecuting, repressing and violating the civil and political rights of its political opponents and the Venezuelan people, as well as to revoke the arrest warrants for political opponents and to free political prisoners;

1. Calls for the immediate and unconditional lifting of the 15-year disqualification of María Corina Machado and all the other political opposition figures, allowing them to stand in the elections;

6. Notes the importance of allowing all Venezuelans, both in Venezuela and abroad, to participate in the elections by updating the permanent electoral registry and the electoral registry abroad, as provided for in paragraph 3(2)(e) of the Barbados Agreement;

2. Calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all the arbitrarily arrested political and social leaders, including the former National Assembly leader, Juan Guaidó, and three campaign staffers of presidential candidate María Corina Machado (Juan Freites, Luis Camacaro and Guillermo Lopez);

7. Insists that the EU must not consider sending any electoral observation mission to Venezuela until there are clear and credible guarantees that the Barbados Agreement and the electoral roadmap are being respected in their entirety, until opposition politicians who have been disqualified from holding public office are reinstated, until Maria Corina Machado is allowed to participate in the elections, and until the EU Election Observation Mission’s 2021 recommendations are properly implemented; notes that it will obviously not recognise elections and election results if these conditions are not respected;

3. Calls for the respect and full implementation of the Barbados Agreement as a first step towards ensuring that the presidential elections scheduled for the second half of 2024 are free and transparent;

8. Remains strongly committed to supporting dialogue between the parties and to the Venezuelan people’s aspirations for a democratic future;

4. Strongly condemns the interference in the designation of the members of the CNE and calls for an independent nomination procedure for new CNE appointments;

9. Calls on the Council to maintain the EU’s sanctions on the Maduro regime and to further expand their scope to include the Venezuelan Supreme Court judges who signed the decision to ban Maria Corina Machado from holding public office and the members of the Venezuelan security forces involved in the systematic abuses perpetuated against government opponents;

5. Expresses its deepest concern about the potential negative effects of the Bolivarian Fury plan on civil liberties and the possibility of having free and fair elections;

10. Calls for the EU to work with the international community and all peaceful democratic stakeholders across the political spectrum in Venezuela and to leverage all mechanisms at its disposal to encourage a return to the principles in the Barbados Agreement;

6. Stresses the need to ensure free and fair elections through the full implementation of the 23 recommendations made by the last EU EOM, particularly those regarding the abolition of the comptroller general’s prerogative to strip citizens of their political rights through an administrative procedure, the integrity and secrecy of the electronic voting system, the use of state resources in electoral campaigns, the conditions to ensure balanced media coverage of electoral campaigns, especially in state media, and the promotion of freedom of expression through the repeal of the Law against Hatred; demands that the Venezuelan authorities approve an EU EOM for the coming presidential elections;

11. Calls on the European External Action Service and the EU Delegation in Venezuela to continue monitoring the situation in the country and to play a more assertive and visible role;

7. Condemns in the strongest terms the numerous killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, instances of torture and any other criminal actions against opponents of the Maduro regime, including politicians, journalists and human right defenders, among many others;

12. Fully supports the International Criminal Court’s investigations into the Venezuelan regime’s extensive crimes and acts of repression and calls for the EU to support the investigations into the alleged crimes against humanity and to hold those responsible to account;

8. Deplores the continuous repression by the Venezuelan regime against political opposition figures and civil society; reiterates its firm and unconditional support for the Venezuelan people;

13. Calls on the international community to continue to support the return of democracy in Venezuela;

9. Deplores Venezuela’s alignment with Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua and other dictatorial regimes;

14. Instructs its President to forward this10. resolutionCalls toon the Council, theMember Commission,States, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Unionunion for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy,Policy the(VP/HR), participantsthe ofUnited theStates EU-Communityand ofinternational Latinhuman Americanrights andorganisations Caribbeanto Statesclosely Summit,monitor the Euro-Latin Americanrepressive Parliamentaryactions Assembly,of the OrganizationVenezuelan ofregime Americanagainst Statesthe andpolitical theopposition Secretary-Generaland ofcivil thesociety Unitedin Nations.Venezuela;

11. Calls on the Member States and the VP/HR to impose the necessary sanctions against those individuals from the Venezuelan regime and its proxies responsible for violations of human rights against the Venezuelan people;

12. Fully supports the ICC investigations into the Venezuelan regime’s extensive crimes and acts of repression and calls for the EU to support the investigations into the alleged crimes against humanity in the country in order to hold those responsible to account;

13. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Organization of American States, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Venezuelan authorities.