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The report ‘The 6D elections in Venezuela and their impact on the border’, presented this Friday in Bogotá, warn that the ruling party has a “steamroller” that the parliamentary majority will achieve, eventual victory against which Nicolás Maduro himself has been confident.
Faced with this situation, the director of the aforementioned foundation, León Valencia, drew attention to the fact that, according to this study, there are “a number of candidates on the border or unknown or questioned, which is very serious and will deepen tensions” between the 2 countries.
“Concern for the border, which is our concern, is very scarce, they do not care what is happening on that border, it is a nobody’s border,” added Valencia.
According to the report, of the candidates analyzed in the nominal and national lists of the states of Zulia and Táchira (bordering La Guajira and Norte de Santander, respectively) “None of them have a clear horizon, an established agenda or a concern about the Colombian-Venezuelan borders.”
The study adds that some official candidates, those who enjoy more political strength, have “strong questions for alleged acts of corruption, international sanctions, links with armed groups, or they are heirs of the current political leaders of these states ”.
Regarding the relationship between the institutions on both sides of the border, the report foresees a “tension mediated by subnational communications and agreements, at the head of the governments of Norte de Santander and La Guajira with the government of Zulia and the ‘protectorate’ of Táchira, as they have been since the closing of the border ”.
That means, according to the report, “a tacit recognition of the Chavista institutions, the only one with de facto control of Venezuelan territory.”
The document adds that, in both Zulia and Táchira, The preponderant border security speeches will be consolidated since 2017.
“Speeches focused on the confrontation with the Colombian government and the logic of the external enemy, especially the influence that the United States can exert on Colombia on the borders of La Guajira and Norte de Santander. A scenario that could have great uncertainty with the arrival of Joe Biden to the presidency in 2021 ”, says the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares).
Foreign policy towards Venezuela, another concern in the face of the elections
From elsewhere, Valencia assured that the international policy applied to Venezuela has failed because it has not managed to make the changes that allow a transition and with it the return of democracy.
He explained that “the actions of the international community, especially the United States, in recent years have aggravated” the situation in Venezuela.
When referring to Colombia, the director of Peers said that the administration of President Iván Duque has also failed because it has acted contrary to “all the logic and rationalities of international diplomacy.”
“The Government of President Duque has not only failed, but has embarked on an unrealizable adventure and now many of the things that happen in Venezuela are also attributable to the actions of the Government of President Duque because a strategy was proposed that has failed,” he said. .
According to Valencia, “we are facing a border crisis fueled by the Miraflores Palace and the Nariño Palace, and this electoral campaign and these elections of December 6 do not offer alternatives for that situation; on the contrary, we see that this crisis is going to get worse ”.
It should be remembered that Colombia is part of the Lima Group, created in 2017 in the Peruvian capital by a dozen American countries with the purpose of finding solutions to the situation in Venezuela, but so far it has not made any major progress in that direction.
Likewise, Colombia was, along with the United States, one of the first countries to recognize Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela in January 2019, which strained relations with the Nicolás Maduro regime.
Tension on the borders between Colombia and Venezuela
Colombia and Venezuela share a border of 2,219 kilometers, a porous region with a high flow of migrants and in which smugglers and drug traffickers proliferate.
Just on Friday, the Venezuelan NGO Fundaredes denounced that “Eln and Farc guerrillas are putting pressure on the population of various entities in Venezuela to participate in questioned parliamentary elections of 6-D.”
The main border crossings between the 2 countries are in La Guajira with the Venezuelan state of Zulia; Norte de Santander and Táchira, and Arauca and Apure.
The border was closed to the passage of vehicles in August 2015 by order of President Nicolás Maduro.
The movement of people was suspended after the rupture of relations decided by Maduro on February 23, 2019, when the head of Parliament, Juan Guaidó, whom more than 60 countries (including Colombia) recognize as president, tried to enter from Cúcuta leading a humanitarian aid caravan.
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