Rome, 8 August (Adnkronos) – “I ask this of the Italian government and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, that they support us in the process we are carrying forward so that sovereignty is respected and Venezuela can, finally, be at peace”. This is the appeal that Williams Davila, Venezuelan politician and current deputy to the National Assembly of Venezuela for the Democratic Action party, addresses to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni through Adnkronos while protests in the South American country do not subside after the outcome of the latest elections. Outgoing President Nicolas Maduro has proclaimed victory with 51.2% of the votes, but the anti-Chavista opposition denounces fraud, claiming success with 70% of the preferences. In recent days, Davila marched through the streets of Caracas to demand the recognition of Edmundo Gonzalez – the opposition candidate – as president-elect: “This is attested by the more than 7 million votes of Venezuelans, men and women, and this is why we will continue to fight.”
“The international community,” explains the Venezuelan parliamentarian, a member of the Milton Friedman Institute, “can apply pressure from outside to have the CNE (National Electoral Council, ed.) show the minutes it claims to have. Prime Minister Meloni knows that the will of the people and their sovereignty must be respected, and I am sure she would support what I say. What happened on July 28 was an electoral phenomenon that had not been seen since the last century. People went to the polls en masse and voted for Edmundo Gonzalez as the new president of Venezuela.” According to Davila, the European Union can also play a decisive role in keeping the spotlight on the situation in the country: “The Maduro regime must know that no one here will rest until popular sovereignty and justice prevail and are respected.”
Meanwhile, in Caracas, the riots continue. At least 24 people are said to have died in the protests that followed the presidential elections on July 28, as reported on X by the human rights organization Provea. The toll refers to the days between July 28 and August 5: “The reality of what is happening in the streets of my country is a systematic process of repression, which generates insecurity and fear for our freedom. Venezuelans – continues Davila – have been brave in taking to the streets on several historic occasions, but what we are experiencing now is not comparable to other years. Anyone can be arrested without having committed any crime. Just being a political leader of the opposition, supporting Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado (politician and human rights activist, ed.) is enough reason to be arrested”.
“The most recent case, which has had a great impact,” says the opposition MP, “is that of a political scientist and university professor from the UCV, who was about to take a flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for the holidays and was not allowed to board. She was arrested and held in solitary confinement for more than 24 hours, without there being any competent body to give explanations. She is only a professional who dedicates herself to humanitarian action, and only for this reason was she arrested. Venezuela is in an unsustainable situation. Citizens are forced to delete chats, delete images and get rid of anything that could implicate them as supporters of the opposition. And this is just one example of the totalitarian character that the illegitimate regime of this country is assuming.”
It is no coincidence that Maduro has declared ‘war’ on the WhatsApp messaging app for security reasons: “Social media in Venezuela have been our only means to be able to express ourselves as freely as possible, to inform ourselves and really know what is happening in the country, given that there has been a situation of censorship for years. Traditional media cannot be totally transparent, otherwise they are closed and taken over by the State, so social media have been the space for communication for all of us. The government – Davila emphasizes – tries to repress social media to prevent people from informing themselves, uploading information or evidence of crimes against humanity, violations of constitutional rights and more. WhatsApp was the application that Maduro ordered to be deleted from phones because, he says, alleged conspiracies were born from there. They want to eliminate WhatsApp because it has been fundamental as a means of revealing fraud, and for the simple fact that they cannot control the main channel of diffusion used to document and inform about what we have been experiencing since July 28. The regime is afraid of what it cannot manipulate and control”.
Davila paints a devastating picture when asked to take stock of Maduro’s government experience: “The country is in a state of extreme poverty, with a high percentage of food insecurity that has left a large part of the population in varying degrees of malnutrition. Not to mention the looting of the state oil company PDVSA, the result of mismanagement and great corruption that has existed since the days of Hugo Chavez. In addition, we find ourselves in a situation where there is no rule of law, so human rights are systematically violated in the country, crimes against humanity are committed. These are the conditions, and that is why political change is necessary and urgent.”
With Gonzalez, Davila argues, Venezuela could have “what it has never really had: an institutional solidity that can always maintain democracy in the country and that can avoid an autocratic system”. In the meantime, on the instructions of Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, the Farnesina has established a permanent “task force” to monitor developments in Venezuela. “In coordination with the Italian Embassy in Caracas and the two consulates in Caracas and Maracaibo – reads a note from the Ministry – continuous monitoring will be carried out of the evolution of the political situation in the country and of the problems related to political opponents and Italian citizens subject to measures by local authorities”.
