Anti-Chavez leader María Corina Machado said on Monday that the majority opposition has managed to obtain 73.20% of the votes cast in this Sunday’s presidential elections, which she said gave victory to former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, with an “overwhelming” difference, even though the electoral body declared the Chavista Nicolás Maduro the winner.
“We have 73.20% of the votes and, with this result, our president-elect is Edmundo González Urrutia. (…) With the votes we are missing, they are not enough for Edmundo. The difference was overwhelming,” said the former deputy in a press conference, together with the standard-bearer of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the largest opposition bloc.
Machado indicated that, according to 73.20% of the minutes, Maduro obtained 2,759,256 votes, while González Urrutia obtained 6,275,182, and “there are still more to come.”
The opposition member explained that all these records were verified, totaled and digitalized, to be published on a “robust” web portal that “several global leaders are already consulting” and that will be public in the next few hours, so that everyone can see the “proof of González Urrutia’s victory.”
The former ambassador, for his part, promised that “the will expressed yesterday (Sunday) through his vote” will be “respected, that is the only path to peace.”
“We have in our hands the records that prove our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory,” said the candidate, who thanked the international community for its solidarity and support.
On Monday, the National Electoral Council (CNE) officially proclaimed Maduro president, after announcing on Sunday night that the Chavista, in power since 2013, won the election with 51.2% of the votes, the same result he received when 80% of the ballots had been counted and there were still more than two million votes left to count.
Meanwhile, González Urrutia obtained 44.2% of the votes, according to the first and only public report of the CNE, which did not specify which candidates received the 2,394,268 votes that were not reported.
Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas and several regions of the country on Monday to protest against the results announced by the CNE, actions that, in several of them, were repressed by the military.
Crowds were out in the streets in the afternoon and in several areas the protests were dispersed by security forces. Meanwhile, governments in Washington and other countries questioned the official results that showed Maduro had won over opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
In the central city of Maracay, one person was killed during a protest, according to a health center. In Barquisimeto, in the west of the country, four people were injured, according to data from a hospital in the city.
In Caracas, about four blocks from Miraflores Palace, or the government house, masked, plainclothes and armed men blocked the way to a group of protesters, including men and women, who were shouting “freedom, freedom” about 200 meters away, according to Reuters witnesses.
In areas such as El Valle, south of Caracas, police fired tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters.
In Coro, capital of the northwestern state of Falcón, protesters toppled a statue depicting the late president and Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chávez.
At least one dead during protests against fraud in Venezuela
At least one person died and several were injured during a protest in the city of Maracay against the fraud perpetrated by Nicolás Maduro. According to the local hospital, a young man lost his life during a demonstration in the capital of the state of Aragua.
The victims of Chavista repression arrive after the regime’s leader declared himself president for a third time following elections widely repudiated internationally.
Meanwhile, just days before the elections, Maduro had threatened a “bloodbath” if he did not win the elections: “On July 28, if we do not want Venezuela to fall into a bloodbath, into a fratricidal civil war produced by the fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest victory in the electoral history of our people.”
That was not Maduro’s first threat before the election. At an event days later he said that the country would decide between “war” and “peace” in the presidential elections.
#Venezuelan #opposition #claims #victory #votes #Diario #Página
