Caracas Venezuela — Thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of Venezuela’s capital on Saturday, waving the national flag and singing the national anthem in support of an opposition candidate they believe won the presidential election in a landslide.
Authorities have declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner of last Sunday’s election, but have not yet presented vote counts showing he won. Maduro also urged his supporters to attend “the mother of all marches” on Saturday in Caracas.
The government arrested hundreds of opposition supporters who took to the streets in the days after the disputed election, and the president and his cadres have also threatened to lock up opposition leader María Corina Machado and his presidential candidate. personally chosen, Edmundo González.
On Saturday, his followers chanted and sang when Machado arrived at the rally in Caracas. Ecstatic, they surrounded her as she climbed onto a raised platform in a truck to address the crowd.
Machado, who has been banned from running for office by Maduro’s government for 15 years, has been in hiding since Tuesday, saying her life and freedom are at risk. Masked assailants ransacked opposition headquarters on Friday, taking documents and vandalizing the space.
On Saturday, he held aloft a Venezuelan flag and vowed that the regime that has forced millions of Venezuelans to leave was finally coming to an end.
“We have overcome all barriers! “We have taken them all down,” Machado said. “The regime has never been so weak.”
González, who remains in hiding, was not seen at the event, and when the demonstration ended, Machado was given a nondescript T-shirt and taken away on the back of a motorcycle.
Carmen Elena García, a 57-year-old street vendor, was at the demonstration even though she feared a government crackdown.
“You have to respect me and you have to respect all the Venezuelans who voted against this government,” García said. “We will not accept that our votes are stolen. They have to respect our votes.”
On Friday, Maduro alleged during a news conference that members of the opposition were planning an attack in a Caracas neighborhood on Saturday. He said that he had ordered the armed forces to monitor the neighborhood.
While a column of pro-government motorcyclists, who have served as Maduro’s militias in the past, approached the opposition rally, there were no clashes. There was only a light police presence.
The Organization of American States on Saturday called for “reconciliation and justice” in Venezuela, saying “may all Venezuelans who express themselves in the streets find only an echo of peace, a peace that reflects the spirit of democracy.”
Machado and González, a 74-year-old former diplomat, said tally records they obtained from voting machines at voting centers across the country show that Maduro overwhelmingly lost his bid for a third six-year term.
An associated press Friday’s analysis of the scrutiny minutes. published by the opposition coalition indicates that González obtained significantly more votes in the elections than the government has claimed, casting serious doubts on the official statement that Maduro won.
On Friday night, Venezuela’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Justice, ordered the National Electoral Council, controlled by Maduro, to deliver vote count sheets for electoral districts within three days. There have been calls from multiple governments, including Maduro’s close regional allies, for Venezuela’s electoral authorities to release recounts at the electoral district level, as they have done after previous elections.
The AP processed almost 24,000 images of tally sheets, representing the results of 79% of the voting machines. Each coded sheet of votes counted in QR codes, which AP decoded and analyzed programmatically, resulting in tabulations of 10.26 million votes.
According to calculations, the Gonzálezes received 6.89 million votes, almost half a million more than the government says Maduro won. The tabulations also show that Maduro received 3.13 million votes from the published minutes.
By comparison, the National Electoral Council said Friday that, according to 96.87% of the records, Maduro had obtained 6.4 million votes and González had 5.3 million. The president of the National Electoral Council, Elvis Amoroso, attributed the delay in the presentation of complete results to attacks on the “technological infrastructure.”
He count sheetsThe minutes, known in Spanish as “actas,” are long printouts that look like purchase receipts. They have long been considered the definitive test of the electoral results in Venezuela.
The AP was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the 24,532 minutes provided by the opposition. The AP successfully extracted data from 96% of the vote counts provided, and the remaining 4% of images were too poor to analyze.
The Biden administration has provided strong support to the opposition. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement on Thursday citing “overwhelming evidence that Gonzalez was the winner and discrediting the official results of the National Electoral Council.
González published a message on X thanking the US “for recognizing the will of the Venezuelan people.”
Maduro said Friday that the United States should stay out of Venezuelan politics.
Venezuela is at the top The largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy, but entered a free fall marked by 130,000% hyperinflation and widespread shortages after Maduro took command in 2013. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country. since 2014, the biggest exodus in the recent history of Latin America.
US oil sanctions have only deepened the misery, and the Biden administration, which had been easing those restrictions, is now likely to increase them again unless Maduro agrees. some kind of transition.
There has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to convince Maduro to allow an impartial audit of the vote. On Thursday, the governments of the three countries issued a joint statement calling on Venezuela’s electoral authorities to “move quickly and publicly publish” detailed election data.
On Friday, Maduro and his campaign manager, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, attempted to discredit minutes posted online by the opposition, arguing that they were missing signatures from the electoral council representative, as well as election workers and representatives. of the parties.
They did not acknowledge that soldiers, civilian militiamen, police, and loyalists of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela prevented some opposition representatives from entering the polls, witnessing the vote, and signing and obtaining copies of the tally sheets.
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