Guaidó insists on international pressure to obtain elections in Venezuela

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó said Friday that he will insist on his policy of international pressure against the government of Nicolás Maduro for the country to hold presidential and legislative elections, although both elections have already been held amid high abstention.

"We need a political solution to the conflict in Venezuela and that is only possible through free, fair and verifiable elections. We have to put pressure internally and internationally to force that solution," the opposition leader was quoted as saying in a statement released by his press team.

The statements were made during a telematic meeting with people he himself designated as Venezuela's "diplomatic representatives" in other countries.

In the conversation, explains the statement, Guaidó recalled that within the "strategy of struggle" against Maduro's executive, which they call a dictatorship, is the attention to the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the defence of human rights, and "to achieve the greatest pressure within the country, as well as outside it".

"We have built unity and we have unity. The greater the unity and internal pressure, the greater the international pressure. We must continue to raise our voices in every space", he insisted.

The diplomatic representatives, according to the opposition statement, said they were willing to "continue raising their voices in every country where they are representing Venezuela, as well as continuing to make visible the unprecedented crisis in the South American nation".

"Venezuela needs a political solution agreement to achieve those free elections," Guaidó told the participants in the virtual meeting, who pledged to "join efforts to the struggle and approach of political solution".

Guaidó, recognised as Venezuela's interim president by some countries, challenged Maduro's legitimacy as president in January 2019 and has since launched a national and international campaign, with the backing of the United States, to remove Maduro from power.

The opposition leader, a former head of parliament with no real authority in Venezuela, has not managed to put an end to the so-called Bolivarian revolution, but several countries have applied sanctions against high-ranking government officials, a policy that has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in the country, according to the United Nations.