The regime has yet to release detailed results after the Chavista-controlled electoral body declared Maduro’s “victory”. Protests erupt throughout the country and chavista forces begin the persecution of opponents.
(DW) The Electoral Observation Department of the Organization of American States (OAS) declared on Tuesday (30/07) that it cannot recognize the result announced by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which the day before declared Nicolás Maduro the “winner” in the presidential election. According to the OAS, the Chavista regime applied the entire “manual of fraudulent manipulation” to distort the real result.
In the early hours of Monday morning, the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, a Maduro ally, announced that the autocrat had won the election with 51.2% of the vote, and that the result was irreversible. Amoroso confined himself to reading a sheet of paper in front of the cameras. The CNE’s website is still down, and the regime has yet to release any detailed results or make all the election minutes available. It’s not even known if the full count has actually been completed.
The opposition, which set up a huge operation to photograph as many ballot papers and minutes as possible during the election, says it can prove that its candidate, Edmundo González, had more than twice as many votes as Maduro.
“More than six hours after the close of voting, the CNE made an announcement […] declaring the official candidate the winner, without providing details of the tables processed, without publishing the minutes and providing only the aggregate percentages of votes that the main political forces would have received,” said the OAS body.
“Throughout this electoral process, the Venezuelan regime applied its repressive scheme, complemented by actions designed to completely distort the electoral result, making it vulnerable to the most aberrant manipulation,” the OAS continues. “The complete manual of fraudulent manipulation of the electoral result was applied in Venezuela on Sunday night, in many cases in a very rudimentary way.”
“The evidence shows an effort by the regime to ignore the will of the majority expressed at the polls by millions of Venezuelan men and women. What happened shows, once again, that the CNE, its authorities and the Venezuelan electoral system are at the service of the Executive Branch and not the citizens,” added the OAS Electoral Observation department.
Opposition says it can prove fraud
Opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Monday that the opposition has the means to prove Edmundo González Urrutia’s “overwhelming victory” in the presidential elections.
“We have 73.2% of the minutes and, with this result, our president-elect is Edmundo González Urrutia […] The difference was so big, so big, the difference was overwhelming, the difference was in all the states of Venezuela,” stressed the former MP, alongside González, leader of the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD), the largest opposition bloc.
Machado pointed out that, according to 73.2% of the tallies, Maduro won 2,759,256 votes, while González Urrutia won 6,275,182. The opposition leader explained that all these minutes have been checked and scanned. They have already been made available on an internet portal created by the opposition.
“We have in our hands the records that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory,” said González, thanking the international community for its solidarity and support.
Persecution of oppositionists
The Chavista regime’s security forces have also begun what appears to be a wave of persecution against the opposition. At least four members of the opposition, three of them prominent figures and one whose identity has not been revealed, have been arrested in recent hours.
Several television channels, including VPI TV, broadcast the moments of the arrests on YouTube, showing men dressed in black and with no visible identification arresting the oppositionists, who were then taken away in vehicles.
One of the detainees is the leader of the Popular Will (VV) party – María Corina’s acronym – and coordinator of the opposition movement With Venezuela, Freddy Superlano. Also arrested was the youth coordinator of the Causa Radical party, Rafael Sivira, and another opposition representative whose identity has not been revealed. On the Venezuelan island of Margarita, the former mayor of Marcano, José Ramón Díaz, was arrested.
Protests break out in Venezuela – statues of Chávez toppled
Protests have spread across Venezuela since the CNE declared Maduro, who has been in power for 11 years, the winner of the election. The regime’s police have reacted with violence against the demonstrators.
A local monitoring group, the Venezuelan Conflict Observatory, said it had recorded 187 protests in 20 states by 6pm on Monday, with “various acts of repression and violence” committed by paramilitary groups linked to the regime and security forces. NGO reports indicate that at least six people have died. At least 749 people have been arrested, according to the regime itself.
Many Venezuelans also staged “panelaços”. Some blocked roads and lit bonfires, including near the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas. Videos showed several statues representing Hugo Chávez – Maduro’s predecessor and political godfather – being torn down and vandalized across the country.
“We’re tired of this government, we want a change. We want to be free in Venezuela. We want our families to come back here,” said one protester, referring to the exodus of more than 7 million Venezuelans in recent years.
The country has already been the scene of large waves of protests in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2019, which were triggered both by the economic ruin afflicting Venezuela and accusations of manipulation of electoral results. In all cases, the regime reacted with violence, and the repression left dozens dead.
Maduro reacts to external pressure by expelling diplomats
The result released by the CNE was only recognized by countries allied with Maduro, mostly dictatorships or regimes that regularly stage sham elections. Maduro received congratulations from China, Russia, Iran, Nicaragua, Cuba and Belarus.
On the other hand, Chile, Argentina, the United States, Spain, Uruguay, Paraguay and Costa Rica were critical and signaled suspicions of fraud in the process. The European Union called for “total transparency”. The Chavista regime reacted by ordering the expulsion of diplomats from seven Latin American countries.
Brazil, for its part, after hours of silence, avoided congratulating Maduro, waiting for more information about the vote. In a statement, Itamaraty said it was awaiting “the publication by the National Electoral Council of data broken down by polling station, an indispensable step for the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the result of the election”.
jps/av (DW, AFP, Lusa, ots)