Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he has asked the country’s Supreme Court to review the presidential election. This comes after opposition leaders disputed his claims of victory. A number of countries around the world have called on him to release detailed information on the vote count. He added that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela is ready to present the electoral protocols of the vote. This was reported by the Associated Press, quoted by BTA.
“I am at the disposal of justice,” he told reporters outside the Supreme Court in Caracas, adding that he was ready to be “summoned, questioned and investigated.”
Maduro’s main challenger in the election, Edmundo Gonzalez, and opposition leader María Corina Machado said they had received more than two-thirds of the minutes from the electronic voting machines printed after election day. They said the data would prove Maduro lost the election. According to Machado, the results of the votes the opposition received showed that Gonzalez received approximately 6.2 million votes compared to 2.7 for Maduro. That differs significantly from official figures, which put Maduro at 5.1 million votes to Gonzalez’s more than 4.4 million.
Maduro insisted to reporters that there was a conspiracy against his government and that the election system had been breached by hackers,
but did not provide any further details or evidence. He is expected to address national and foreign media later today, his first official press conference since the election.
The pressure against the president is increasing. The National Electoral Council, which is loyal to his United Socialist Party, has not yet published any printouts of polling station reports, as it did in previous elections.
Maduro’s close ally, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, today joined other foreign leaders calling on him to release detailed census data. Yesterday, another of Maduro’s allies, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, along with US President Joe Biden, called for the “immediate publication of full, transparent and detailed voting data at the polling station level”.
The White House said US patience with Venezuela after Maduro’s controversial re-election as president is running out.
“I want to point out that our patience, as well as that of the international community, is running out,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters. “We are running out of time waiting for the electoral authorities in Venezuela to release the full election data so that everyone can see the results,” he said.
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