The Biden administration is increasing its tone toward Venezuela, pressuring President Nicolás Maduro to publish automatically generated election results to support his claims of victory in Sunday’s elections.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a White House press conference on Wednesday that the administration is coming to an end with Maduro’s diversions.
“Our patience, and that of the international community, is running out, running out. I’m waiting for the Venezuelan elections [authority] to clarify and release all the detailed data about this election so everyone can see the results,” Kirby said.
Kirby was referring to the precinct-by-district election printouts that Venezuela’s electronic voting machines automatically output at the end of voting day.
These impressions, says the opposition, will show a landslide victory for Edmundo González, former ambassador and presidential candidate of the unified opposition.
The Venezuelan electoral authority (CNE) on Sunday declared Maduro the winner with 51 percent of the vote, without publishing district-by-district results generated by voting machines.
Cuba, Russia, China and Iran quickly recognized the CNE’s decision, but left-leaning regional powers, such as Brazil and Colombia, resisted, calling on Maduro to present the recipes.
The Biden administration has expressed concern about discrepancies between the opposition’s accounting of the elections and the official results, and demanded publication of the printouts, although US officials have not set a deadline.
Kirby’s comments, citing observers who discredited the election, represent the first major escalation of the US position since Sunday’s vote.
“[You] You may have seen the Carter Center, an independent observer, just this morning, release a report stating that, quote, ‘the 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic’, that ‘ the failure of the electoral authority to announce results disaggregated by polling station constitutes a serious violation of the ‘we share’ electoral principles,” Kirby said.
The Carter Center was allowed to enter Venezuela as an independent election observer. On Tuesday, the group released a statement criticizing the “clear prejudice of the CNE in favor of the incumbent”.
Kirby also highlighted an extraordinary meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Wednesday in Washington, convened by Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the United States and Uruguay to address the election.
“I’m not going to get ahead of this meeting, of course; I would simply like to reiterate that the United States joins other democracies in the region, and indeed around the world, in expressing serious concerns about these subversions of democratic norms,” Kirby said.
Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
