The US recognized opposition candidate Gonzalez as the winner of the Venezuelan presidential election
CARACAS, Venezuela: The stakes have risen for Venezuela's electoral body to present evidence supporting its decision to declare President Nicolas Maduro the winner of the country's presidential election after the United States on Thursday recognized opposition candidate Edmund Gonzalez as the winner, discrediting the official results of the much-anticipated vote.
The US State Department's announcement followed calls by several governments, including close allies of Maduro, for Venezuela's National Electoral Council to release detailed vote counts, as it has done in previous elections.
The electoral body declared Maduro the winner on Monday, but the main opposition coalition revealed hours later that it had evidence to the contrary in the form of more than two-thirds of the tally sheets printed by each electronic voting machine after the polls closed.
“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States, and especially to the Venezuelan people, that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes in the Venezuelan presidential election on July 28,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The US government's announcement came amid diplomatic efforts to persuade Maduro to release the election's vote totals and growing demands for an independent assessment of the results, according to officials in Brazil and Mexico.
Government officials from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have been in constant communication with Maduro's administration to convince him that they must show the vote totals from Sunday's election and allow impartial verification, a Brazilian government official told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Officials told the Venezuelan government that showing the data was the only way to dispel any doubts about the results, said the Brazilian official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the diplomatic efforts and requested anonymity.
A Mexican official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, confirmed that the three governments had discussed the issue with Venezuela, but did not give details.
Earlier, Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador said he planned to speak with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia and that his government believed it was important for the election results to be made public.
Later on Thursday, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico issued a joint statement calling on Venezuela's electoral authorities to “promptly and publicly release” details of the vote, but did not confirm any behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts to persuade Maduro's government to release the vote. add up.
“The fundamental principle of popular sovereignty must be respected through impartial verification of results,” they said in a statement.
Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets on Monday after the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of the election. The government said it had arrested hundreds of protesters, and the Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal said 11 people had been killed. Dozens more were arrested the following day, including former opposition candidate Freddy Superlano.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado – who was barred from running for president – and Gonzalez addressed a huge rally of supporters in the capital Caracas on Tuesday but have not been seen in public since. Later that day, the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, called for their arrest, calling them criminals and fascists.
In an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Machado said she was “in hiding and afraid for my life, my freedom and the freedom of my countrymen.” She reaffirmed that the opposition has physical evidence that Maduro lost the election and called on the international community to intervene.
“We voted out Mr. Maduro,” she wrote. “It is now up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government.”
Government repression has driven opposition leaders into exile over the years. After the op-ed was published, Machado's team told the AP that he was “in hiding.” Machado later posted a video on social media calling for supporters to gather across the country on Saturday.
Gonzalez's campaign had no comment on the op-ed.
On Wednesday, Maduro asked Venezuela's Supreme Court to audit the election, but the request drew almost immediate criticism from foreign observers who said the court was too close to the government to conduct an independent review.
Venezuela's Supreme Judicial Tribunal is closely tied to Maduro's government. The court's judges are nominated by federal officials and ratified by the National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro supporters.
On Thursday, the court accepted Maduro's request for an audit and ordered him, Gonzalez and eight other candidates who ran in the presidential election to appear before a judge on Friday.
Gonzalez and Machado say they retrieved more than two-thirds of the tally sheets printed from the electronic voting machine after the polls closed. They said releasing data on those records would prove Maduro lost.
Asked why electoral authorities had not released detailed vote tallies, Maduro said the National Electoral Council had been the target of attacks, including cyber attacks, without elaborating.
The presidents of Colombia and Brazil – both close allies of the Venezuelan government – called on Maduro to release detailed vote counts.
A Brazilian official said the diplomatic effort was only intended to promote dialogue between Venezuelan stakeholders to negotiate a resolution to the disputed election. The official said this would include making voting data public and allowing for independent verification.
López Obrador said that Mexico hopes that the will of the Venezuelan people will be respected and that there will be no violence. He added that Mexico expects “evidence to be presented, records of election results.”
Since the election, pressure has been building on the president.
The National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro's United Socialist Party of Venezuela, has yet to release any results broken down by voting machine, as it has done in past elections. But he said Maduro won 5.1 million votes, compared to more than 4.4 million for Gonzalez. But Machado, the opposition leader, said vote totals showed Gonzalez received roughly 6.2 million votes compared to 2.7 million for Maduro.
Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves and once boasted Latin America's most advanced economy, but went into freefall after Maduro took over in 2013. Collapsing oil prices, widespread shortages, and hyperinflation that exceeded 130,000 percent led to social unrest and mass emigration.
More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest exodus in modern Latin American history.
