Venezuelan opposition says it has proof its candidate defeated President Maduro in disputed election – The Denver Post

Authors: JOSHUA GOODMAN and REGINA GARCIA CANO

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González said Monday that his campaign has the evidence it needs to show he won the country’s highly anticipated presidential election, which authorities have certified to President Nicolás Maduro.

González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told supporters gathered outside his campaign headquarters in the Venezuelan capital that they had obtained more than 70% of the ballots from Sunday’s election showing González ahead of Maduro.

“I speak to you with the calmness of truth,” González said. “The will expressed yesterday through your vote will be respected… We have in our hands the results sheets that show our victory.”

As he spoke, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest what they said was an attempt by Maduro to steal the election, in which both candidates had declared victory.

Shortly after the National Electoral Council, loyal to Maduro’s ruling party, officially declared him the winner, angry protesters began marching through Caracas and cities across Venezuela. The electoral body’s announcement secured him a third six-year term.

In the capital, the protests were largely peaceful, but a fight broke out when dozens of national police officers dressed in riot gear blocked the caravan. Police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, some of whom threw rocks and other objects at the officers, who were stationed on the main avenue of the upper-class district.

A man fired a gun as protesters moved through the city’s financial district. No one was shot.

The demonstrations followed elections that were among the most peaceful in recent years, reflecting hopes that Venezuela would avoid bloodshed and end 25 years of one-party rule. The winner took control of an economy recovering from collapse and a population desperate for change.

“We have never been moved by hatred. On the contrary, we have always been victims of the powerful,” Maduro said in a nationally televised ceremony. “There is an attempt to carry out another coup in Venezuela, of a fascist and counter-revolutionary nature.”

“We already know the film and this time there will be no weakness,” he added, saying Venezuelan “law will be respected.”

In the impoverished Petare district of the capital, people began walking and shouting against Maduro, with some masked youths tearing down campaign posters bearing his image from lampposts. Heavily armed security forces stood just blocks away from the protest.

“It will fall. It will fall. This government will fall!” some protesters shouted as they walked.

“He has to go. One way or another,” said María Arráez, a 27-year-old hairdresser, who joined the demonstration.

As the crowd marched through another neighborhood, retirees and office workers cheered him on, banging pots and recording the protest as a show of support. There were several chants of “freedom” and curses directed at Maduro.

Elsewhere, protesters tried to block highways, including the one connecting the capital with the port city that is home to the country’s main international airport.

Officials delayed the release of detailed voting results from Sunday’s election after declaring Maduro the winner with 51% of the vote, compared with 44% for retired diplomat Edmundo González. Competing claims have led to a high-stakes stalemate.

“Venezuelans and the whole world know what happened,” González said. But he and his allies asked supporters to remain calm and urged the government not to fuel the conflict.

Several foreign governments, including the United States and the European Union, have refrained from recognizing the election results.

After failed attempts to remove Maduro from power in three rounds of demonstrations since 2014, the opposition has placed its trust in the vote.

The country sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy. But after Maduro took over, the country went into free fall, marked by plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages of basic goods and hyperinflation of 130,000%.

U.S. oil sanctions were aimed at removing Maduro from power after his 2018 reelection, which dozens of countries condemned as illegitimate. But the sanctions have only accelerated the exodus of some 7.7 million Venezuelans who have fled their crisis-stricken country.

Voters were lining up Saturday evening to cast their ballots, fueling opposition hopes that they were breaking Maduro’s grip on power. The official results came as a shock to many who celebrated, online and outside a handful of polling centers, what they saw as a landslide victory for Gonzalez.

Gabriel Boric, Chile’s leftist leader, called the results “difficult to believe,” while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had “serious concerns” that the results did not reflect the actual votes or will of the people.

In response to criticism from other governments, Maduro’s Foreign Ministry announced it would recall diplomatic staff from seven countries in the Americas, including Panama, Argentina and Chile. Foreign Minister Yvan Gil asked those governments to do the same with their staff in Venezuela.

He did not explain what would happen to members of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s staff, including her campaign manager, who have been holed up in the Argentine embassy in Caracas for months after authorities issued arrest warrants against them.

Machado said González’s lead was “overwhelming,” based on tallies obtained by the campaign from officials stationed at about 40% of polling booths.

Authorities have postponed the release of results from each of the 30,000 polling stations nationwide, promising to do so in the “coming hours.” The delay has hampered efforts to verify the results.

González was the most unlikely of the opposition’s flagship candidates, the 74-year-old an unknown until he was chosen at the last minute in April as a replacement for opposition powerbroker Machado, who has been barred from running for office by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court for 15 years.

Authorities have timed Sunday’s election to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, a revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013, leaving his Bolivarian revolution in Maduro’s hands. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which controls all branches of government, are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crushingly low wages that have led to hunger, paralyzed the oil industry and torn families apart due to migration.

In this election, the president has promoted economic security, which he has tried to sell with a narrative of entrepreneurship and references to stable exchange rates and lower inflation rates. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will grow 4% this year — one of the fastest in Latin America — after shrinking 71% between 2012 and 2020.

But most Venezuelans have seen no improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, meaning families struggle to afford essentials. Some work second and third jobs. A basket of basic groceries to feed a family of four for a month costs about $385.

The opposition managed to support a single candidate after years of intra-party divisions and election boycotts, thwarting its ambitions to overthrow the ruling party.

A former legislator, Machado won the October opposition primary with more than 90 percent of the vote. After being barred from running in the presidential race, she chose a college professor as her replacement on the ballot, but the National Electoral Council also barred her from registering. González, a political novice, was then chosen.

Gonzalez and Machado have focused much of their campaign on Venezuela’s vast hinterland, where the kind of economic activity we’ve seen in Caracas in recent years has never materialized. They’ve promised a government that creates enough jobs to encourage Venezuelans living abroad to return home and reunite with their families.

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Associated Press journalist Fabiola Sánchez contributed to this article.

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Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Originally published: Jul 29, 2024 at 12:40 PM