Sawt Falasteen - Concern grows as Venezuela blocks election observers

In the latest blow to an already fraught election run-up, Panama said authorities had prevented a flight carrying former Latin American leaders -- all critics of President Nicolas Maduro -- from leaving its international airport.

Colombian officials reported being denied entry at Caracas airport, as did Spanish MPs.

Socialist Maduro, 61, will seek reelection Sunday to a third six-year term amid accusations of opposition harassment by an increasingly authoritarian regime.

His government agreed with the opposition last year to hold free and fair elections in 2024, with international observers present -- winning a temporary easing of sanctions from the United States.

But he since reneged on some of the conditions, and loyalist institutions barred opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from running against him.

On Friday, Panama said its former president Mireya Moscoso, as well as former leaders Miguel Angel Rodriguez of Costa Rica, Jorge Quiroga of Bolivia and Vicente Fox of Mexico, had their plane held up.

The group, which also included former Colombian vice president Marta Lucia Ramirez, got off to allow the plane, with many Venezuelan voters on board, to take off.

Panamanian authorities said the delay affected several flights to and from Venezuela.

Panama has summoned Venezuela's diplomatic representative in the country to explain.

Diosdado Cabello, vice president of Venezuela's ruling party, had warned this week the former presidents would be expelled if they came, calling them "enemies of this country."

"A bad sign for Sunday," Fox said Friday in an interview with Mexico's Grupo Formula radio. "We were removed from the plane with blackmail and pressure from Venezuela."

Colombian radio reported that senator Angelica Lozano was denied entry upon arrival in Caracas, and then deported.

And in Spain, the conservative opposition People's Party (PP) said a 10-member delegation of its parliamentarians were detained in Caracas by "the tyrant Maduro."

Party leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo on X demanded their "immediate release" and intervention from the Spanish government.

Sources in the foreign ministry told AFP the party had been informed their request to observe the vote had been denied by Caracas.

"Chavismo doesn’t want witnesses," PP spokesman Miguel Tellado said, referring to the populist movement created by Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez.

"It does not want the international community to have eyes and ears in Venezuela this weekend," he added on X.

Caracas this week also withdrew an invitation to observe the vote to Argentina's ex-president Alberto Fernandez after he publicly urged Maduro to accept the outcome, even if he loses.

It had earlier canceled an invitation to European Union experts, while allowing monitors from the UN and the US-based Carter Center.

- 'Bloodbath' -

Maduro will on Sunday face off against little-known ex-diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, 74, who replaced Machado on the ballot and should win, polls say, by a large margin.

Analysts, observers and many opposition supporters doubt Maduro, who counts on a loyal electoral machinery, military leadership, courts and state institutions, will let him.

Maduro has already warned of a "bloodbath" if he loses, drawing opprobrium from Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who said: "Maduro has to learn: if you win, you stay. If you lose, you go."

On Friday, Argentina's right-wing libertarian President Javier Milei, at odds with many of his leftist counterparts in the region, said in a message to Machado that his country supported Venezuela "in this struggle for freedom" and called for voting rights to be respected.

The Foro Penal, an NGO advocating for the rights of "political prisoners" in Venezuela, meanwhile, reported the arrests of 135 people with links to the opposition campaign since January.

Forty-seven are still detained.

Maduro's 2018 reelection was rejected as illegitimate by most Western and Latin American countries.

But years of tough US sanctions and other pressure failed to dislodge the president, who enjoys support from Cuba, Russia and China.

The formerly rich petro-state has seen GDP fall by 80 percent in less than a decade, driving some seven million of its citizens to flee.

Most Venezuelans live on just a few dollars a month, with the health care and education systems in total disrepair and biting shortages of electricity and fuel.

The government blames US sanctions for the state of affairs, but observers say it all started with deep-rooted corruption and mismanagement.

H.Nasr--SF-PST