Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has insisted his party is ready to present all the vote tallies from his country’s disputed election after election observers said it “could not be considered democratic”.
The National Electoral Council (CNE) declaration that Mr Maduro won has sparked two days of protests, with the country’s opposition saying voting tallies show its candidate, Edmundo González, won by a wide margin.
NGOs say there have been at least 11 deaths in protest-related violence and that dozens more have been injured.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mr Maduro said again that his government’s reason for not publishing the electoral results was because of a “hack” on the electoral council website.
He also claimed he had “proof” that the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was behind “violence”.
He alleged that protesters were “attacking” the constitution and asked the Supreme Court to take action, which could pave the way for more mass arrests of opposition figures or protesters.
Top US diplomat for Latin America, Brian Nichols, said the evidence showed President Maduro overwhelmingly lost by “millions” of votes – endorsing vote tallies released by his opponents.
“The tabulation of these detailed results clearly show an irrefutable result: Edmundo Gonzalez won with 67% of these votes compared to 30% for Maduro,” he said in remarks at an Organisation of American States (OAS) meeting, AFP reported.
“While not a total result, there are not enough votes in remaining tally sheets… to overcome such a deficit,” he continued.
Earlier on Wednesday the US-based Carter Center – which was invited by Venezuelan officials to monitor Sunday’s presidential poll – said it could not “verify or corroborate the results of the election declared by CNE”.
The Carter Center also said that the CNE’s failure to announce the detailed results by polling station “constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles”.
It added that the CNE had “demonstrated a clear bias in favour of the incumbent [President Nicolás Maduro]” and accused the CNE of a “complete lack of transparency in announcing the results”.
The opposition have said they’ve obtained the majority of receipts from electronic voting machines which prove they won the election with 70% of the vote.
With its statement, the Carter Center has joined a long list of countries and organisations pressuring the CNE to release detailed voting data at the polling station level, among them the US, Brazil and the EU.
The US state department said the international community was running out of patience waiting for Venezuelan electoral authorities to release full detailed data on their country’s election.
The Carter Center statement is embarrassing for the Maduro government because its observers had been complimentary about the Venezuelan electoral system in the past.
President Maduro has often quoted a remark by the Carter Center’s founder, former US President Jimmy Carter, who in 2012 said that “of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”.
More than 1,000 people have so far been detained, according to Venezuela’s attorney general, who also said that two members of the security forces had died in the protests.
Ms Machado has urged her supporters to remain peaceful even if provoked by the government and its allies.
On Tuesday, a close ally of President Maduro, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez, called for the arrest of Ms Machado and Mr González, accusing them of leading a “fascist conspiracy”.
President Maduro told the media on Wednesday Ms Machado and Mr González “should be behind bars”, AFP reported.
The Costa Rican foreign minister later offered Ms Machado and Mr González political asylum, saying that his government “had been informed of arrest warrants” against the two.
Ms Machado thanked the Costa Rican government but said that it was her “responsibility to continue this struggle alongside the people”.
In a separate social media post late on Wednesday, Ms Machado urged her supporters to “mobilise”.
She wrote on X: “It’s time to trust in each other. To stay active and firm.
“It took time to win; now it’s time to collect.”
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