Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodriguez used the UN General Assembly stage to promise the country will return to the ballot box, saying elections are planned as part of a shift toward “full democracy” — while stopping short of naming a date.
“I want to make this very clear at this General Assembly: There will be elections in Venezuela,” said Ms Rodriguez, who took power after US forces captured then-president Nicolas Maduro in a January raid.
Addressing world leaders, Ms Rodriguez said her administration has begun talks with opposition groups and would guarantee the participation of all political forces. She said national institutions are now being readied to run the electoral process.
“Venezuela has initiated a process of democratic transformation for its rebirth, an orderly, institutional, and verifiable process, to build a country that is freer for all, more prosperous, and more reconciled with itself,” said Ms Rodriguez.
Her pledge came as critics accuse Washington of pushing Venezuela’s opposition to the margins, arguing the US has eased its previous insistence on free elections in favour of oil and investment deals with the interim government.
Delcy Rodriguez said the government had initiated talks with the opposition
In the United States, some politicians have also pressed for elections, amid criticism that the Trump administration has failed to secure meaningful democratic concessions from Ms Rodriguez’s government.
“We have opened a political dialogue with opposition groups aimed at a process with equal conditions for all,” said Ms Rodriguez.
Ms Rodriguez briefly met President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and praised him for restarting dialogue with Venezuela.
Among other matters, Mr Trump and Ms Rodriguez discussed restructuring the South American nation’s billions of dollars in sovereign debt.
“This is the time to build the nation that many people want to return to,” Ms Rodriguez said, while warning that economic recovery “will take time”.
She also appealed for backing from abroad, urging the international community to support Venezuela as it moves from “a stage of uncertainty and conflict toward a stage of full democracy.”
Milei tells UN it is ‘useless organisations’ full of ‘arrogant parasites’
Javier Milei said the UN served ‘only to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites disguised as well-intentioned bureaucrats’
Argentine President Javier Milei delivered a blistering critique of the United Nations in his own address, branding the body a “useless organisation” overrun by “arrogant parasites.”
The firebrand Mr Milei, one of Mr Trump’s closest Latin American allies, has repeatedly used the UN platform to criticize global governance and its “woke” agenda.
He said the organisation had failed to uphold collective security and human rights, arguing it had instead created space for “chaos, violence and international terrorism” to spread.
The UN, he said, “has become a useless organisation, serving only to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites disguised as well-intentioned bureaucrats.”
Mr Milei also accused the UN of “looking the other way” on Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory that Argentines refer to as Las Malvinas and claim as part of their country.
Argentina has accused Britain of flouting a UN resolution ordering both parties to desist from unilateral action in the islands, over which the two countries fought a war in 1982.
“Those who follow the rules receive no reward for doing so, while those who break them face no repercussions whatsoever,” Mr Milei said.
Highlighting Mr Milei’s close relationship with Mr Trump, Argentina and the United States yesterday announced a joint initiative to upgrade the Latin American nation’s infrastructure and link it with “vital economic sectors to major Atlantic ports and Western markets.”
The so-called Andes-Atlantic Corridor aims to facilitate investment in transport, digital infrastructure, minerals and energy including Vaca Muerta, a massive hydrocarbon deposit in southern Argentina, a joint statement said.
