Ian Patrick, FISM News

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The United States Treasury said that four individuals were blacklisted in Venezuela. This is in response to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s and his follower’s efforts to “undermine the independence and democratic order of Venezuela.”

Two of the people, Indira Alfonso and Jose Gutierrez, were appointed earlier this year by the pro-government Supreme Court to oversee the national electoral council, which has called elections for this December. The Venezuelan opposition and the United States say the council is stacked with Maduro loyalists and cannot oversee a fair vote. The main opposition coalition, led by parliament head Juan Guaido, has vowed to boycott the election. “The corrupt Maduro regime is attempting to seize control of the National Assembly of Venezuela through a fraudulent election,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Also sanctioned were Reinaldo Munoz, Maduro’s solicitor general, and former Venezuelan state Governor David de Lima, who the Treasury said had orchestrated vote-buying operations to sway opposition lawmakers. The Treasury also remarked that all of the men who were blacklisted were “part of a broader election interference scheme to prevent free and fair parliamentary elections from taking place in December 2020 by restructuring the National Electoral Council and controlling the state’s wealth and assets for regime purposes through the Solicitor General.”

Sourced from Reuters America Wire and Treasury.Gov.