Francisco Kerdel, corresponding academician for Venezuela of the Royal European Academy of Doctors-Barcelona 1914 (RAED), transmits to academicians and friends of the RAED the positioning of the Venezuelan academies to create a united front to change the political order that lives the South American country. The National Academies of Sciences, History, Language, Medicine, Political and Social Sciences, Physical, Mathematical and Natural Sciences, Economic Sciences and Engineering and Habitat issued a joint note in which they reject the call for elections advanced by the National Constituent Assembly, and they call the “leaders, political organizations, diverse actors of civil society and the electors, victims of the terrible situation we suffer, to turn this moment into a powerful force challenging the current order”.
Dr. Francisco Kerdel Vegas
The Venezuelan academies argue in the manifesto “Ante las elecciones del 22 de abril” (Before the elections on April 22) that the country can’t hold a free or fair election while prominent opposition leaders are deprived of their freedom, the electoral authority doesn’t guarantee clean elections, doesn’t exist an electoral census endorsed by the main international institutions and there is no absolute freedom of the press. To date, there are no guarantees or a minimum consensus between the government and the opposition to legitimize the electoral appointment.
“Venezuela is going through a structural situation of multiple difficulties: it’s fallacious to organize an electoral process requested by an illegitimate entity, without the aforementioned conditions, of such importance for the restoration of democratic order, an event that, as has been proposed, lacks adequate controls that guarantee the impartiality of the body in charge of its execution, the neutrality of the State as a whole and the absence of undue pressure, as well as the full participation of all Venezuelans of legal age, residents inside and outside the country, and the effective endorsement of an international observation”, says the document.
