MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The United States seeks to disrupt the 2020 parliamentary polls in Venezuela, the Latin American country’s President Nicolas Maduro said in an interview with Rossiya-24 TV channel broadcast on Monday.
"I can personally warn the international community that the US government with its extremist policy and non-traditional war against Venezuela is already considering plans of disrupting the parliamentary elections," Maduro said, noting that Venezuela has data confirming these plans.
Speaking on the reasons behind the possible US meddling in the upcoming parliamentary polls, Maduro noted that "they know they cannot win them just the same as during the May 20, 2018 presidential election."
The political crisis in Venezuela exacerbated on January 23, when Juan Guaido, Venezuelan opposition leader and parliament speaker, whose appointment to that position had been cancelled by the country’s Supreme Court, declared himself interim president at a rally in the country’s capital of Caracas. Several countries, including the United States, most of the EU states, Lima Group members (excluding Mexico), Australia, Albania, Georgia and Israel, as well as the Organization of American States, recognized him.
Incumbent Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in turn, dismissed the move as a coup staged by Washington and said he was severing diplomatic ties with the US. In contrast, Russia, Belarus, Bolivia, Iran, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Syria and Turkey voiced support for Maduro.