The Chilean government sent a note of protest to Venezuela on Friday for having prevented Senators Felipe Kast (center-right) and José Manuel Rojo Edwards (far-right) from entering the country, invited by the Venezuelan opposition as observers in the Sunday elections in which Nicolas Maduro seeks re-election.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Venezuelan ambassador in Chile, Arévalo Méndez, to deliver a note of protest because the senators José Manuel Rojo Edwards and Felipe Kast were not allowed to enter that country.”the Foreign Ministry said in a brief statement.
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Kast, from the Evópoli party, reported on his social networks that they were going to be deported because they did not comply “with the profile or the conditions to enter the country”.
“It is completely arbitrary. This shows that all the words of some who say that it is a democracy are simply a big lie.”Kast said in a video on X.
Edwards, from the far-right Christian Social Party, said for his part that “Maduro has brought misery and hunger” and “You should know that all of Latin America will defend the democracy of the brave people of Venezuela”.
The Presidency of the Chilean Senate assured that the facts are “undemocratic” and “denote the greatest gravity” because “Chilean senators have all the conditions usually required by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to enter its territory”.
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Maduro, in power since 2013, will face Edmundo González Urrutia on Sunday, a 74-year-old former diplomat who became the opposition candidate after former lawmaker María Corina Machado was disqualified, and who leads the voting intention according to traditional pollsters in the South American country.
Chavismo, however, maintains that Maduro will win, despite independent polls reflecting the weariness of much of the population amid a fierce economic crisis that has devastated the country in the last decade.
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The deportation of the Chilean senators takes place hours after Venezuela prevented the entry of a delegation of parliamentarians from the Popular Party (PP) of Spain and also a group of former Latin American presidents on a plane that could not take off from Panama until the former presidents got off the aircraft.
