The United States has officially declared opposition candidate Edmundo González the winner of Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election, calling the official results favoring incumbent President Nicolás Maduro ‘deeply flawed’.
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, said on Thursday that ‘given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia received the most votes’ and congratulated him on his ‘successful campaign’.
This statement from Washington increases the pressure on Maduro, who this week initiated a crackdown on nationwide protests against his controversial re-election.
The government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) announced on Monday morning that Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, had received 51.2 percent of the vote, while González received 44.2 percent. However, the CNE did not provide any supporting evidence and did not respond to international pressure to provide it.
The electoral department of the Organization of American States said that the Venezuelan election result could not be recognized due to a lack of evidence. Maduro has referred the election dispute to the government-controlled Supreme Court.
The Carter Center, a U.S. nonprofit organization and the only independent body evaluating the Venezuelan election, withdrew its team on Tuesday without certifying the results. The center said the election did not meet international standards of electoral integrity ‘at any stage.’
The opposition, which conducted a nationwide monitoring mission, declared González the winner and president-elect with 7.1 million votes to 3.2 million for Maduro, publishing 80 percent of the receipts collected at polling stations as evidence.
Blinken also called for the immediate release of all those arrested for protesting the election results and stressed that the safety of González, a 74-year-old former diplomat, and opposition leader María Corina Machado must be guaranteed. Maduro and members of his inner circle said in speeches this week that the pair should be detained.
Washington’s top diplomat called the threats an “undemocratic attempt to suppress political participation and stay in power.” Authorities in Venezuela have arrested more than 1,000 people in connection with protests this week, while human rights groups report at least 17 demonstrators killed.
In his speeches this week, Maduro called González ‘Guaidó 2.0,’ a reference to Juan Guaidó, the opposition lawmaker whom Washington and dozens of other Western capitals recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate president after a 2018 election widely viewed as fraudulent. That attempt to overthrow Maduro ultimately failed, and Guaidó fled Venezuela in April last year.
Also on Thursday, left-wing governments in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico issued a joint statement calling on ‘Venezuelan electoral authorities to move quickly and make public the data disaggregated by polling station’, but could not bring themselves to condemn Maduro.
Machado, who was barred from running in the election, called for nationwide protests on Saturday to defend González’s victory. “The country needs us strong, organized and mobilized,” she wrote on X.
