Criticism mounts against Venezuela’s Maduro and the electoral council that declared him a victor
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — International criticism of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro mounted Tuesday, a day after electoral authorities declared him the winner in a presidential election that the opposition claims to have won by a landslide.
The Organization of American States chastised Maduro for his government’s sustained repression of the opposition. It also lambasted the National Electoral Council, which is loyal to the ruling party, for its delay in showing precinct-level results to prove the president secured the most votes in Sunday’s election.
“The worst form of repression, the most vile, is to prevent the people from finding solutions through elections,” the organization said in a statement. “The obligation of each institution in Venezuela should be to ensure freedom, justice, and transparency in the electoral process. The people should have the maximum guarantees of political freedom to be able to express themselves at the polls, and to protect the rights of citizens to be elected.”
The organization, which has called an urgent meeting of its members to discuss Venezuela’s election, even suggested that a new vote should take place to resolve the widely different results that electoral authorities and the opposition presented Monday. The do-over, the organization said, would require robust international observation.
Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets nationwide Monday to protest the results announced by the electoral council. As they marched, opposition candidate Edmundo González announced that his campaign has the proof it needs to show he won.
González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters they have obtained more than 70% of tally sheets, which show González won more than double the number of Maduro’s votes. Both urged their supporters to remain calm and invited them to gather peacefully Tuesday. In the capital, Caracas, people were expected to demonstrate outside a building that houses the offices of the United Nations.
“I speak to you with the calmness of the truth,” González said, as dozens of supporters cheered outside campaign headquarters in Caracas. “We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.”
Monday’s protests in Caracas were mostly peaceful, but when dozens of national police officers wearing riot gear blocked the caravan, a brawl broke out. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, some of whom threw stones and other objects at the officers who were deployed on a main avenue of an upper-class district.
A man fired a gun as the protesters moved through the city’s financial district. No one was injured in that incident.
However, Attorney General Tarek William Saab said Tuesday that more than 700 people had been detained in connection with the protests, in which one officer died. Saab said a combined 48 military and police officers also were injured. Charges against some of the detainees will include terrorism, he added.
Those taken into custody included opposition leader Freddy Superlano, who was filmed by a bystander on Tuesday morning as armed individuals pulled him out of a sports utility vehicle and forced him and two other men into another SUV. Superlano and one of the men can be seen throwing what appear to be their cellphones, which were then picked up by the people detaining them.
Monday’s demonstrations followed an election that was among the most peaceful in recent memory, reflecting hopes that Venezuela could avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of single-party rule. The winner would take control of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change.
“We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro claimed in a nationally televised ceremony. “An attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela again of a fascist and counterrevolutionary nature.”
“We already know this movie and this time there will be no kind of weakness,” he added, saying that Venezuela’s “law will be respected.”
In the port city of La Guaira, people toppled a statue of Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chavez, dragged it to the street and set it on fire during Monday’s protests. Maduro unveiled the statue in 2017, and by Tuesday, all that remained was its base, littered with twisted rebar and broken cement.
Machado told reporters that tally sheets from polling stations show Maduro received more than 2.7 million votes while González secured roughly 6.2 million. Meanwhile, the electoral council reported Maduro and González garnered about 5.1 million and more than 4.4 million votes respectively.
More than 9 million people cast ballots Sunday, according to figures released by National Electoral Council President Elvis Amoroso.
The number of eligible voters for this election was estimated to be around 17 million. Another 4 million Venezuelans are registered to vote, but they live abroad and many did not meet the requirements to register to cast ballots overseas.
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Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman contributed to this report from La Guaira.