Demonstrators hold a Venezuelan flag outside that nation's consulate to protest the contested presidential election results in Bogota, Colombia, on Aug. 1.Ivan Valencia/The Associated Press
Half a dozen masked assailants ransacked the headquarters of Venezuela’s opposition Friday in an escalation of violence against President Nicolas Maduro’s opponents after several countries called for proof of his claim he had won the disputed presidential election.
Assailants broke down doors and hauled away valuable documents and equipment in the raid around 3 a.m., opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s party said. Images published by Ms. Machado’s party on social media show several walls covered in black spray paint.
The raid follows threats by top officials, including Mr. Maduro, to arrest Ms. Machado, who has gone into hiding while still urging Venezuelans and the international community to challenge Sunday’s election results.
The Biden administration has thrown its support firmly behind the opposition, recognizing candidate Edmundo Gonzalez as the victor and discrediting the National Electoral Council’s official results. Mr. Gonzalez was tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for Ms. Machado, who has been barred from running for political office for 15 years.
The U.S. announcement late Thursday followed calls from multiple governments, including Mr. Maduro’s close regional allies, for Venezuela’s electoral authorities to release precinct-level vote counts, as it has done during previous elections. On Friday, Uruguay recognized Mr. Gonzalez as the winner.
The electoral body declared Mr. Maduro the winner Monday, but the main opposition coalition revealed hours later that it had collected copies of more than 80 per cent of the country’s 30,000 voting tallies – printouts from the electronic voting machines – and that they show Mr. Gonzalez prevailed by a more than two-to-one margin.
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“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Mr. Maduro responded with a quick admonishment: “The United States needs to keep its nose out of Venezuela!”
Mr. Gonzalez, whose location is also unknown, posted a message on X Friday thanking the U.S. “for recognizing the will of the Venezuelan people reflected in our electoral victory and for supporting the process of restoring democratic norms in Venezuela.”
On Friday, Venezuelan electoral authorities gave an updated vote count, but not the precinct-level tallies demanded.
National Electoral Council president Elvis Amoroso said that with 96.9 per cent of tally sheets counted, Mr. Maduro’s margin of victory was more than eight percentage points over Mr. Gonzalez: 52 per cent to 43.2 per cent. He attributed the delay in updating results to “massive attacks” on the “technological infrastructure.”
Mr. Blinken’s announcement came amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to convince their fellow leftist to allow an impartial audit of the vote. On Thursday, the governments of the three countries issued a joint statement calling on Venezuela’s electoral authorities “to move forward expeditiously and publicly release” detailed voting data.
But it’s unclear what leverage the countries have over Mr. Maduro, who has shown little desire to rethink his entrenched position.
On Friday, Vyacheslav Volodin, Speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament, emphasized that Russian election monitors have witnessed Mr. Maduro winning a legitimate victory. He accused the U.S. of fomenting tensions in the country.
“Washington is playing by its rules, which are aimed at maintaining its hegemony and expanding its influence,” Mr. Volodin said. “It doesn’t accept any other outcome but the victory of the candidate it backs.”
Although no ally or anyone in the armed forces has yet to break with Mr. Maduro over the contested elections, he faces huge obstacles righting Venezuela’s economy without the legitimacy that can only come from a credible election result.
Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven crude reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy, but it entered into a free fall marked by 130,000-per-cent hyperinflation and widespread shortages after Mr. Maduro took the helm in 2013. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2014, the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history.
U.S. oil sanctions have only deepened the misery and the Biden administration – which had been easing those restrictions – is now likely to ramp them up again unless Mr. Maduro agrees to some sort of transition.
“He’s counting on being able to wait this out and people will get tired of demonstrating,” said Cynthia Arnson, a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “The problem is, the country is in a death spiral and there’s no chance the economy will be able to recover without the legitimacy that comes from a fair election.”
Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday after the National Electoral Council declared Mr. Maduro the winner of the election. The government said it arrested hundreds of protesters and Venezuela-based human rights organization Foro Penal said 11 people were killed.
Ms. Machado and Mr. Gonzalez addressed a huge rally of their supporters in the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday, but they have not been seen in public since. Later that day, the President of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, called for their arrest, describing them as criminals and fascists.
On Wednesday, Mr. Maduro asked Venezuela’s highest court to conduct an audit of the election, but that request drew almost immediate criticism from foreign observers who said the court – which like most institutions is controlled by the government – lacks the independence to perform a credible review.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice agreed to conduct the audit and ordered Mr. Maduro, Mr. Gonzalez and the eight other candidates who participated in the presidential election to appear before the justices Friday. A spokesman for Mr. Gonzalez said he did not know if the candidate planned to attend.
In an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Machado said she is “hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen.” She reasserted that the opposition has physical evidence that Mr. Maduro lost the election and urged the international community to intervene.
“We have voted Mr. Maduro out,” she wrote. “Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government.”
Brazil, Mexico and Colombia joined calls on Aug. 2 for Venezuela to release detailed voting tallies, amid a heated dispute over presidential election results, with the United States announcing it now considers the opposition candidate the winner.
Reuters