2024-08-25 16:48:31
Venezuela’s Chavistas and opposition have called for marches in Caracas and other cities on Saturday, nearly three weeks after the elections in which President Nicolas Maduro was re-elected amid allegations of fraud by his opponents.
Maduro was proclaimed re-elected by the National Electoral Council (CNE) for a third six-year term, until 2031, with 52% of the votes, a figure that the opposition led by María Corina Machado rejects.
The leader claims victory for her candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, and published on a website copies of more than 80% of the voting records, which she claims prove her arguments.
Machado predicted a “historic day” with demonstrations in Caracas and 300 other cities in a “great global protest for the truth.”
“Here everyone has to keep up the battle and keep up the strength,” the former deputy said on Friday in a broadcast on social media. “Knowing that they are naked, what do they do? Lies, repression, violence and demoralization. Demoralization is the strategy of the regime” of Maduro, she said.
Once the result was announced, protests broke out, resulting in 25 dead and more than 2,400 arrests, branded by Maduro as “terrorists.”
It is unclear whether Machado or González Urrutia will participate in the protest in Caracas. They have been in hiding since authorities opened a criminal investigation against them for “inciting rebellion,” among other charges, shortly after the president called for jail time for both of them, accusing them of acts of violence.
Machado took part in the last major post-election demonstration on August 3. González has not appeared in public since July 30.
– «Celebrate victory» –
Chavismo will also test its strength in the heart of Caracas in support of Maduro, who has asked the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to “certify” the election, accused of favoring the government with his decisions.
“On Saturday we will take to the streets to march throughout Venezuela, we will take to the streets to continue celebrating the victory of the Bolivarian revolution,” said the powerful Chavista leader Diosdado Cabello this week.
Various sectors of Chavismo demonstrated almost daily at the presidential palace of Miraflores in support of Maduro, who maintains that Machado and González Urrutia are behind an attempted coup d’état.
The CNE has not yet published the detailed table-by-table count, arguing that the automated voting system was the target of a “cyber-terrorist attack.”
Regarding the copies of the electoral records published on the Internet by the opposition, Chavismo and the CNE itself, they claim that these documents are forged.
The process requested by Maduro before the Supreme Court is considered inadmissible by academics and opponents.
– «Authoritarian bias» –
The United States, the European Union and Latin American countries have rejected the result. Brazil and Colombia are leading efforts to find a political solution to the crisis and have proposed repeating the elections, an idea that has been rejected for now by both the Chavistas and the opposition.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a longtime ally of Maduro, raised the tone Friday regarding the Venezuelan leader, saying he led a “government with an authoritarian bias.”
In a joint statement, the European Union (EU) and 22 countries requested the “impartial verification” of the voting results, while the Organization of American States (OAS) – from which Venezuela decided to withdraw – demanded that the “minutes of the July 28 elections be published expeditiously” “at the level of each polling station.”
“We are preparing the delegation of electoral observers for the November 5 elections in the United States. A commission of Venezuelan experts is going and we are going to review table by table (…) Ah! But if Maduro says that, ‘no, Maduro is crazy’,” the president said ironically on Friday in response to requests to review the results.
