CARACAS: The stakes grew higher for electoral authority to show proof backing its decision to declare President Nicolás Maduro the winner of Venezuela’s presidential polls following Washington has recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner, questioning the official results of the elections.
The announcement of the US Department of State followed calls from multiple countries and governments, including close allies of Maduro, for Venezuela’s National Electoral Council to issue detailed vote counts, as it has done during last polls.
The National Electoral Council has already declared Maduro the winner of the elections, but the main opposition party disclosed hours later that it had evidence to the contrary in the form of more than two-thirds of the tally sheets that each electronic voting machine printed following polls closed.
In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that given the evidence, it is clear to Washington and, most significantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the votes in the country’s presidential election.
Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico
The US announcement came amid diplomatic efforts to convince Maduro to release vote tallies from the polls and increasing calls for an independent review of the election results, Brazil and México said.
Government officials from Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico have been in constant contact with Maduro’s government to convince him that he must present the vote tally sheets from Sunday’s polls and allow fair verification, the Associated Press reported.
The officials have told government of Venezuela that showing the data is the only mean to dispel any doubt regarding the results, the Brazilian official said on the condition of anonymity.
Earlier, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated that he planned to speak with President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and that they believe it is significant that the electoral tallies be made public.
Venezuela has the world’s largest crude assets and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced country, but it entered into free fall following Maduro took the helm in 2013. Dropping oil prices, shortages and hyperinflation that soared last 130,000 percent led to unrest in the country. Over 7.7 million people have left Venezuela since 2014, the largest migration in Latin America’s recent history.
