World leaders and election observers are calling on Venezuela to release the full results of the country’s presidential vote, at a time when President Nicolás Maduro has been formally declared the winner of an election that the opposition says was marred by fraud.
Few stores were open and public transport was scarce in the normally bustling Venezuelan capital, Caracas, on Monday, when the National Electoral Council (CNE) said Maduro had secured another six-year term as president.
Elvis Amoroso, from the CNE, said that the Venezuelan people re-elected Maduro by a majority to be president “for the period 2025-2031”.
Speaking in a televised speech from Caracas, Maduro, 61, stated – without providing evidence – that “an attempt is being made to impose a coup d’état in Venezuela”.
“We already know this film and, this time, there will not be any type of weakness”, he added, stating that the “law will be respected” in Venezuela.
The electoral authority, which is controlled by Maduro supporters, did not release results from each of the 30,000 polling stations across Venezuela after Sunday’s vote, fueling questions and allegations of fraud.
Opposition representatives previously said that tallies collected from campaign representatives at the centers showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez defeated Maduro.
But the CNE said Gonzalez failed to defeat the president, garnering 44 percent support compared to Maduro’s 51 percent.
“Venezuelans and the whole world know what happened,” Gonzalez said in his first statements since the results were announced. He and his allies called on their supporters to remain calm and called on the government to avoid fomenting conflict.
Having breakfast on a bench next to a closed store in Caracas, 28-year-old Venezuelan voter Deyvid Cadenas said on Monday morning that he felt cheated.
“I don’t believe yesterday’s results,” Cadenas, who voted for the first time in the presidential election on Sunday, told the Associated Press news agency.
As political uncertainty continues to roil in the South American country, leaders from across the region and around the world have called on Venezuela to release a full analysis of the election results.
A spokesperson for the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, said that the UN chief calls for “total transparency” and “the timely publication of election results and their distribution among polling stations”.
“The secretary-general trusts that all electoral disputes will be addressed and resolved peacefully and calls on all Venezuelan political leaders and their supporters for moderation,” Stephane Dujarric told journalists at UN headquarters in New York.
The Carter Center, which sent a team of election observers to Venezuela for the elections, also called on the electoral authority to immediately publish the results of the presidential vote by polling station.
“The information contained in the polling station results forms, transmitted to the CNE, is critical for our assessment and important for all Venezuelans,” the group said in a statement. declaration.
‘They robbed us’
Maduro, who first came to power in 2013 after the death of his mentor and predecessor Hugo Chávez, presided over an economic collapse that forced millions of people to flee the country.
Venezuela has also been isolated internationally due to sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and others, which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.
Reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Al Jazeera’s Teresa Bo said there was an immediate sense of disappointment among Venezuelans “who were hoping for change” at the polls on Sunday.
Many also expressed anger over the election results and the way they were announced. “The crucial data [showing] where the votes come from” has not yet been disclosed, she noted.
Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek Saab, a Maduro ally, said on Monday that his office has launched an investigation into an alleged cyberattack on the electoral system.
Saab accused opposition leaders of being involved, but did not present any evidence to support his claim.
“What we are seeing from the government at the moment is a government that says it won the elections, which is under attack,” reported Bo.
“That’s not what people on the streets are saying. Millions of Venezuelans are convinced that there was a massive fraud.”
On Monday morning, a cacophony of banging came from the Petare and 23 de Enero areas of Caracas – traditionally large working-class bastions of the United Socialist Party – as neighbors participated in a “cacerolazo”, a traditional Latin American protest. American in which people bang pots and pans.
“Maduro yesterday destroyed my biggest dream, to see my only daughter again, who went to Argentina three years ago,” retired Dalia Romero, 59, told the Reuters news agency in Maracaibo, a city in northwestern Venezuela.
“I stayed here alone with breast cancer so she could work there and send me money for treatment,” she said through tears. “Now I know I will die alone without seeing you again.”
Ender Nunez, a 42-year-old driver from Maracaibo, also expressed disappointment. “We are going to be in this nightmare for another six years and what hurts most is that we were robbed,” he said.
Emergency meeting requested
Meanwhile, nine Latin American countries called an emergency meeting of the permanent council of the Organization of American States (OAS) due to their concerns over the election results.
Panama, one of the countries, also said it would put its diplomatic relations with Venezuela “on hold” and withdraw diplomatic staff from the country until a full review was carried out.
“We are suspending diplomatic relations until a complete review of electoral records and the voting computer system is carried out,” said Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino during a press conference.
Al Jazeera’s Bo explained that the call for an OAS meeting was not surprising, as the governments involved are largely “right-wing governments [that] have traditionally opposed Venezuela.”
Instead, she said that “all eyes are now on what the left or center-left governments in the region will say” about the results.
On Monday morning, the government of left-wing Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for “impartial verification” of the results.
Gabriel Boric, Chile’s left-wing president, said his government “would not recognize any result that is not verifiable,” urging Venezuela to provide “full transparency of electoral records and the process.”
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
