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🇻🇪 Venezuela /Elections & Politics

Velásquez calls for elections to secure legality of Venezuela-U.S. oil deal

From El Nacional · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • Venezuelan opposition leader Andrés Velásquez called for presidential elections, linking the demand to the legal validity of a recently announced oil agreement with the United States.
  • Velásquez questioned the government’s authority to commit national assets and criticized the lack of public information about a deal he said involves 65 billion barrels.
  • He said restoring the rule of law and state institutions was necessary to make oil agreements legally secure and sustainable.

Andrés Velásquez says Venezuela’s recently announced oil agreement with the United States cannot have lasting legal force without presidential elections and a return to the rule of law.

The opposition leader argued that Venezuela’s institutional breakdown creates uncertainty over any commitment involving the country’s natural resources and assets. He said restoring legality, legal certainty and functioning state institutions should come before agreements are allowed to stand over time.

To restore legality, legal security, the rule of law and institutions to the country, which do not exist today.

— Andrés VelásquezVelásquez described the institutional conditions he said Venezuela must recover.

Velásquez also criticized the limited information available about the oil pact. He contrasted the current agreement, which he said involves 65 billion barrels, with an earlier period when decisions concerning the oil industry drew broad public debate. “To restore legality, legal security, the rule of law and institutions to the country, which do not exist today,” he said.

The most serious issue, and what should concern us and the U.S. administration, is that they are signing an agreement with a government that has no legitimacy and has no authority whatsoever to dispose of or commit the country’s assets or property.

— Andrés VelásquezHe challenged the Venezuelan government’s authority to make commitments involving national assets.

He acknowledged that Venezuela could eventually maintain an oil relationship with the United States, but said the central issue was whether the Venezuelan government had the legitimacy and authority to dispose of or commit national assets. “The most serious issue, and what should concern us and the U.S. administration, is that they are signing an agreement with a government that has no legitimacy and has no authority whatsoever to dispose of or commit the country’s assets or property,” he said.

Velásquez dismissed the possibility that changes to the mechanism used to finalize the agreement would solve the problem. “No change they make will give legal security to those commitments. That is the point,” he said. He maintained that only an electoral process restoring the rule of law and institutional order could provide the legal certainty needed for Venezuela’s oil agreements.

No change they make will give legal security to those commitments. That is the point.

— Andrés VelásquezHe said modifying the agreement’s implementation mechanism would not resolve its legal uncertainty.
About this summary

Originally published by El Nacional in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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