Panama Asks the UN for a Democratic Transition and for González Urrutia to Assume Power

Panama on Monday called for a “time-limited interim government” in Venezuela, aimed at allowing Edmundo González Urrutia to assume the presidency, which, it argued, the opposition leader won at the polls in July 2024 and whose popularity has increased in Venezuelan “police and military sectors”.  The proposal was made by Panama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Eloy Alfaro, during a special session of the UN Security Council on the situation in Venezuela following the capture and extradition from that country last Saturday of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on charges of narco-terrorism.  Pictured below, Panama President Mulino left and Edmundo González Urrutia, to the right.

The Venezuelan government has been left in the hands of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, appointed by the Supreme Court as acting president, with the blessing of the U.S. as long as she “behaves well,” as President Donald Trump said, who seems to have ruled out elections soon because “the country is a disaster” and “we are focusing more on fixing it, on preparing it first.”  Panama, which in 2026 concludes its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the Security Council, “makes a clear and firm call for the future of Venezuela, in the short term, to be fully democratic,” said the ambassador of the Central American country to the UN, Eloy Alfaro. 

The government of President José Raúl Mulino will not recognize “any authority other than the president-elect” González Urrutia, because that “would be tantamount to legitimizing electoral fraud, normalizing authoritarianism, and undermining the universal principle of free elections as a source of legitimacy,” Alfaro reiterated.  González Urrutia obtained “an indisputable victory with 70% of the votes on July 28, 2024,” he said, noting that the electoral records that prove it are under custody in Panama, and recalled that the opposition leader María Corina Machado, 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, “was the (presidential) candidate prevented by the regime despite having won the primary with 93% of the votes on October 22, 2023.” 

“The popularity of both has actually increased in recent months, even among police and military sectors. The elected government has the teams and work programs ready to be implemented immediately to guarantee an orderly transition that provides the rule of law, respect for human rights, and trust,” he asserted.  The representative from Panama added that “any attempt to establish a permanent government headed by figures from the repressive apparatus, such as Delcy Rodríguez, would constitute a continuation of the system and not a genuine transition.”