CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — As thousands of people demonstrated across Venezuela, opposition candidate Edmundo González announced Monday that his campaign has the proof it needs to show he won the country’s disputed election in which electoral authorities named President Nicolás Maduro the victor.
González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters they have obtained more than 70% of tally sheets from Sunday’s election, and they show González with more than double Maduro’s votes. Both called on people, some of whom protested in the hours after Maduro was declared winner, to remain calm and invited them to gather peacefully at 11 a.m. Tuesday to celebrate the results.
“I speak to you with the calmness of the truth,” González said as dozens of supporters cheered outside campaign headquarters in the capital, Caracas. “We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.”
Their announcement came after the National Electoral Council, which is loyal to Maduro’s ruling Unites Socialist Party of Venezuela, officially declared him the winner, handing him his third six-year term.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Venezuela on Monday to protest the victory of Nicolás Maduro in the country’s presidential election.
In the capital, the protests were mostly peaceful, but when dozens of riot gear-clad national police officers blocked the caravan, a brawl broke. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, some of whom threw stones and other objects at officers who had stationed themselves on a main avenue of an upper-class district.
The CNE declared Maduro winner, but has not published the official election records and blocked most of the observers and most neighbouring countries are refusing to accept the result without seeing the detailed records of the election by municipality. How is this western interference? Maduro is taking everyone for fools, but it’s always the west’s fault.
When it’s Trump, or Bolsonaro, or Orban stealing an election and refusing to go, do you know what you are going to say?
I get that person’s instincts. The West has tried to coup Venezuela like twice in the last couple of years alone. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a coup by the west or corruption by the government, so I’m going to see wait until I see more evidence from either side.
I’m just waiting to see what Petro, Lula and Boric say about the radio silence from Caracas. Obviously Xi and putin already recognized it without evidence, because they couldn’t care less about democratic legitimacy and they will benefit from a civil war in Venezuela.
People need to understand that the new cold war is not Commies vs Fascists. It is between rule of law and popular support vs despotism trying to take us back to the 1700s and this cuts across left-right and is happening inside every democratic country.