The Venezuelan Bishops ask that the president’s election due on May 20^th this year be postponed to “the last quarter of the year”, otherwise “it might aggravate” the situation in the country and “bring it into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”. This has been stated in a release about the “political and humanitarian crisis”, a preview of which has been sent to SIR today. The Bishops realise that “the evils listed in our Pastoral Exhortation in January this year have got worse: hyperinflation has increased the population’s general poverty”, and “a general lack of public utilities, electricity, gas, all over the country makes life more difficult”. “All this – they point out – while the government’s leaders, who should solve problems in these areas, remain surprisingly indifferent”. In the country, “more hunger and unemployment” are spreading, “epidemics and disabilities are increasing among the more vulnerable ones, with the lack of treatment drugs to make things worse”. Therefore, they go on, “a lot of protests are taking place all over the country, even if they are hushed by the media”. Emigration too “is increasing all the time, day after day, and affecting all social levels”, in “increasingly uncertain conditions”. “Deaths among the migrating brothers are happening already, thus sowing more pain in the families”. The Bishops thank the neighbouring countries, which have given them shelter and assistance through humanitarian organisations, “church institutions who work with migrants, Caritas”. “Challenged by human problems of such extent – they state –, the president’s election, convened on May 20^th this year, is delegitimised – they say. They way it has been organised, without the proper protection that goes with every free, trusting, transparent election process”, instead “of solving the crisis that the country is experiencing, it might make it worse and bring the country into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. So, it must be urgently postponed to the last quarter of the year”.