Venezuela’s bishops has called for the country’s May elections to be postponed and urged the president to change direction in order to take a “different course from this saga of death.”
President Nicolas Maduro is running for another term in the presidential election due to be held on 20 May. The bishops say that the hunger across the nation, the lack of utilities and the collapse of the Venezuelan currency and of its health services, make it impossible for an orderly election to take place.
In a strongly-worded statement, the bishops warned that the “the very existence [of Venezuela] as a free, fraternal and democratic nation” is at stake and they say they are concerned for the “surprising indifference of government officials” in the face of these problems.
The bishops made an appeal to Catholics and ‘to all men and women of good will to share our concerns.” They are alarmed, the statement continued “to see how the evils pointed out in our Pastoral Exhortation of January…have worsened,” such as hyperinflation and the “general impoverishment of the population.”
The result of this is that more Venezuelans, from all levels of society, are emigrating “in increasingly precarious conditions,” the bishops said. This in turn destroys family ties and leads to children and the elderly being abandoned.
“Faced with humanitarian problems of such magnitude, the Presidential elections, called for May 20 lack legitimacy,” the statement added. The bishops also point out that the electoral campaign has not been drawn up with any effort to ensure a free or transparent electoral process.
The main opposition Democratic Unity coalition has announced that it will boycott the election and it has refused to put up any candidates against Maduro: only one opposition politician, Henry Flacon, has said he is a candidate.
PICTURE: A man walking by a vandalised mural of Venezuelan President Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela. Photo: Rayner Pena/dpa
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