Masked gunmen ransack Venezuelan opposition headquarters as post-election tensions rise – Boston Herald

Authors: REGINA GARCIA CANO and JOSHUA GOODMAN

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — More than a dozen masked gunmen ransacked the headquarters of the Venezuelan opposition on Friday, part of an escalation of violence against opponents of President Nicolás Maduro after several countries demanded evidence to support his claims that he won a disputed presidential election.

The attackers broke down doors and took valuable documents and equipment in a raid at about 3 a.m., opposition leader Maria Corina Machado’s party said. Photos posted by Machado’s party on social media showed several walls covered in black spray paint.

The raid came after threats from top officials, including Maduro, to arrest Machado. Machado has remained in hiding, while calling on Venezuelans and the international community to challenge Sunday’s election results.

The Biden administration has overwhelmingly backed the opposition, recognizing candidate Edmundo González as the winner and discrediting the official results from the National Electoral Council. González was chosen in April as a last-minute replacement for Machado, who has been barred from running for political office for 15 years.

The U.S. statement on Thursday evening followed calls from many governments, including Maduro’s close regional allies, for Venezuelan electoral authorities to release district-level voting results, as they did in previous elections. Uruguay recognized Gonzalez as the winner on Friday.

On Monday, the electoral body declared Maduro the winner, but the main opposition coalition revealed hours later that it had collected copies of more than 80% of the country’s 30,000 voter registrations — printouts from electronic voting machines — and that they showed González had won by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States, and most importantly, the Venezuelan people, that Edmundo González Urrutia was the top vote winner in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Maduro responded with a curt admonition: “The United States needs to keep its nose out of Venezuela!”

González, whose whereabouts are also unknown, posted a message on X on Friday in which he thanked the United States “for recognizing the will of the Venezuelan people, which was reflected in our electoral victory, and for supporting the process of restoring democratic norms in Venezuela.”

Venezuelan electoral authorities on Friday released updated voting results, but did not provide the requested numbers at the constituency level.

National Electoral Council President Elvis Amoroso said that with 96.9% of ballots counted, Maduro’s lead over González was more than 8 percentage points: 52% to 43.2%. He attributed the delay in updating the results to “massive attacks” on the “technological infrastructure.”

Blinken’s statement comes amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to persuade their leftist counterparts to allow an impartial audit of the vote. On Thursday, the three governments issued a joint statement calling on Venezuelan election authorities to “act swiftly and publicly release” detailed voting data.

However, it is unclear what influence these countries have on Maduro, who shows no willingness to change his entrenched position.

On Friday, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, stressed that Russian election observers had witnessed Maduro’s legitimate victory. He accused the United States of stoking tensions in the country.

“Washington plays by its own rules, the goal of which is to maintain hegemony and expand influence,” Volodin said. “It does not accept any other outcome than the victory of the candidate it supports.”

While no ally or military official has yet to side with Maduro over the disputed election, Maduro faces formidable obstacles in fixing Venezuela’s economy without the legitimacy that only a credible election result can provide.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy, but after Maduro took power in 2013, the country entered a free-fall characterized by hyperinflation of 130,000 people and widespread shortages. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2014, the largest flight in Latin America’s recent history.

US oil sanctions have only deepened misery, and the Biden administration — which had been easing those restrictions — is now likely to tighten them again unless Maduro agrees to some form of transformation.

“He’s hoping to wait it out and people will tire of the demonstrations,” said Cynthia Arnson, a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. “The problem is that the country is in a death spiral, and there’s no way the economy can recover without the legitimacy that comes with fair elections.”

Thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets Monday after the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of the election. The government said it had arrested hundreds of protesters.

Machado and González spoke at a large rally of their supporters in the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday but have not been seen in public since. Later that day, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez called for their arrests, calling them criminals and fascists.

Maduro on Wednesday asked Venezuela’s highest court to conduct an audit of the elections, but the request was immediately met with criticism from foreign observers who said the court — which like most institutions is controlled by the government — lacked sufficient independence to conduct a credible review.

On Friday afternoon, González was absent — the chair next to Maduro was empty — as the court convened the nine presidential candidates.

Supreme Court President Caryslia Rodríguez called on candidates and their parties to provide all required documents as the court, which is pro-Maduro, intends to verify the results.

Maduro used the opportunity to call the absent González the “candidate of fascism” and promised to hand over all voting results.

In an op-ed published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Machado said she was “in hiding, afraid for my life, my freedom and my countrymen.” She reiterated that the opposition has physical evidence that Maduro lost the election and called on the international community to intervene.

“We kicked out Mr. Maduro,” she wrote. “Now the international community must decide whether to tolerate a demonstratively illegitimate government.”

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Goodman reported from Medellin, Colombia. Associated Press correspondents María Verza in Mexico City and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed.

Originally published: August 2, 2024 at 9:47 AM