00:00Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonzales and his Dominican counterpart
00:05Roosevelt Skerritt welcomed the results released by the electoral body in Caracas.
00:11Both Gonzales and Skerritt are staunch supporters of Maduro.
00:15Well I've already called the Venezuelan government to congratulate them on the victory of Nicolas
00:22Maduro. In fact I was, you saw me on the phone just before as I came out of the vehicle.
00:28That was my congratulatory call. St. Vincent the Grenadines is going to issue
00:34its own statement. There's an ALBA statement which is being issued.
00:40The history of elections in Venezuela would indicate, and the last time when a number of
00:48countries for political reasons claimed that the elections were not free and fair and didn't
00:52reflect the will of the people. The Carter Center for instance
00:58reported that the Venezuelan election machinery is one of the most sophisticated and
01:07transparent in the entire world. Well as far as I've seen the
01:15entity which oversees and governs the elections in Venezuela has indicated that President Maduro
01:22and his party have been re-elected for another six year term in the Bolivarian Republic of
01:28Venezuela. And therefore we extend our congratulations as we do in all elections
01:32anywhere in the world. Our congratulations to President Maduro on his re-election.
01:37We look forward to working with him for the next six years on a bilateral and multilateral basis.
01:42Venezuela continues to be a very important player in the hemisphere from a number of
01:50vantage points and we congratulate the Venezuelan people for conducting themselves in a largely
01:55peaceful and event-free election process. Guyana and Venezuela have a long-running
02:03border dispute with both countries now awaiting a ruling from the International Court of Justice.
02:10Guyana's president Dr Irfan Ali was much more diplomatic
02:14in his comments about the outcome of Sunday's elections.
02:18An election has a number of components. One is the operations and arrangement before the elections,
02:26the elections itself, the election day and of course the mechanisms after the election.
02:33Mechanisms to ensure that the votes are counted, mechanisms to ensure that there's a credible
02:40process of verification and a credible process that allows a person to request what the law
02:49entertains, recount and so on. So those are all components of the election. We are not pronouncing,
02:58we cannot pronounce one way or the other as I said. We don't have details before us but
03:05those are the components that we support in any democratic elections.
03:08Trinidad and Tobago last week welcomed Venezuela's decision to sign a 20-year
03:14natural gas production and exploration deal with its national gas company and BPTT.
03:21Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley welcomed the holding of the elections in Venezuela.
03:26The fact that there was an election is a good thing and now we're waiting on the results.
03:33The official results are out and I don't have any basis at this stage to not be more optimistic.
03:40St Lucia's Prime Minister Philippe J. Pierre said Castries is not being rushed into making
03:45a pronouncement on the election results. I've always made that point, it's the people of
03:50Venezuela who suffer, the people and if there was a call for elections and elections took place,
03:57when all the audits and all the observers have reported, I think the results should be accepted
04:03and Venezuela allowed to operate as it should operate to benefit the people of Venezuela.
04:09The results of the Venezuelan elections are likely to be a topic of discussion
04:14for the regional leaders who are gathered here for the 47th regular meeting that ends on Tuesday.
04:21Peter Richards reporting for CCN TV6 from Grenada.
04:27you
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