Vicente Fox and other former Latin American presidents are prevented from arriving in Venezuela

BOGOTÁ (apro).- The government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro today banned the entry into Venezuela of a plane carrying former Mexican President Vicente Fox and other right-wing former leaders from the region who were planning to act as “observers” of the elections to be held in that country this Sunday, June 28.

The commercial plane that the former presidents had boarded at Panama’s international airport bound for Caracas was notified that it would not be able to enter Venezuelan airspace if the former leaders did not get off the aircraft, which they had to do so that the flight could take place with the rest of the passengers.

Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino blamed Venezuelan authorities for preventing former presidents from traveling to that country, where presidential elections will be held this Sunday in which Maduro seeks re-election and in which the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, would be the favorite, according to several polls.

Fox assured on his X account that “THE FEAR OF A TYRANT IS NOTICED IN HIS ACTIONS, BUT WE WILL CONTINUE TO BE STRONG @MariaCorinaYA FREE VENEZUELA.”

The message was addressed to Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has supported Gonzalez Urrutia since Maduro’s government prevented her from registering as a presidential candidate.

Fox said they decided to get off the Copa flight to allow the rest of the passengers to fly to Caracas. They were then received by the Panamanian president and spoke by phone with Machado, to whom they expressed their support for the elections this Sunday.

In addition to Fox, former presidents of Panama, Mireya Moscoso; of Costa Rica, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez; and of Bolivia, Jorge Quiroga, as well as the former vice president of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez, were seeking to travel to Caracas.

The former presidents belong to the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA), a right-wing forum to which former presidents belong, such as Mexico’s Felipe Calderón, whose right-hand man, Genaro García Luna, was found guilty in the United States of working for the Sinaloa Cartel, and Colombia’s Iván Duque, who ordered the repression of social protests in 2021, which led to 63 deaths.