Former Panama President Mireya Moscoso - Not Welcome In Venezuela

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) On Friday, former Latin American presidents from the IDEA group reported that they had to get off a Copa airlines plane because, under pressure from the Nicolás Maduro regime, three aircraft with approximately 150 passengers each were being held.
One of the planes was in Caracas, another aircraft in Valencia and flight CM223, which was carrying the former presidents, was in Panama on its way to Venezuela. The three flights were delayed for more than an hour and a half because they were not allowed to fly over Venezuelan airspace until the former presidents got off the plane in Panama.
"I think they are ridiculous, they know they are people who are not welcome, they are very repudiated people (...) they are extreme right, racists and fascists, they were not invited by the electoral power and the electoral power decides who to invite and who not to invite, I am not going to get involved in that. I have a lot of work, you will not see me on a list saying to come, not to come," said Maduro in a program broadcast by the state television station of this country, Venezuelan Television (VTV).
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Nicolás Maduro holds up the sword of Simon Bolivar.

Incumbent Nicolas Maduro is vowing a“bloodbath” if he loses, which polls say is likely.
Seeking a third six-year term at the helm of the economically devastated country, Maduro lags far behind challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in voter intention.
The Nicholás Maduro regime
reacted to international criticism of the blockade it imposed to prevent the entry into
Venezuela
of former presidents, senators, deputies and political figures from the region and Spain, who had been invited by the opposition
María Corina Machado
and the candidate of the alliance
Edmundo González, to witness the presidential elections Sunday, July 28.
Maduro described as ridiculous and unwelcome the former presidents of Panama, Mireya Moscoso; of Bolivia, Jorge Quiroga; of Mexico, Vicente Fox; of Costa Rica, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez and the former Colombian vice president, Martha Lucía Ramírez. At the same time, he attacked MEPs and representatives of the Popular Party who were also not allowed to enter that country, despite having managed to land at the Maiquetía International Airport, unlike the former presidents who had to get off the plane in Panama.

This information was confirmed by the President of the Republic himself, José Raúl Mulino, and later the Panamanian Foreign Minister, Javier Martínez-Acha, together with the designated director of the Civil Aeronautics Authority of Panama, Rafael Bárcenas, asked Venezuela for explanations.
Hours later, when the former presidents had already cancelled their trip to Venezuela, flights resumed operations and the National Institute of Civil Aeronautics of Venezuela described the information about the closure of airspace to Panamanian aircraft as false.
On Wednesday, July 24, Diosdado Cabello, a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly and vice president of the ruling United Socialist Party for Venezuela, had indicated that former presidents would not be allowed to enter Venezuelan territory.
“They're not going to come here to bother us,” Cabello said.
During the broadcast of the program“Nico Live”, accompanied by the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, he assured that he was prepared to have the best relations with the United States based on respect and communication, but he said that he would not allow interventionism.

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