CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — The stakes grew higher for Venezuela’s electoral authority to show proof backing its decision to declare President Nicolás Maduro the winner of the country’s presidential election after the United States on Thursday recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the victor, discrediting the official results of the highly anticipated vote.
The U.S. Department of State announcement followed calls from multiple governments, including close allies of Maduro, for Venezuela’s National Electoral Council to release detailed vote counts, as it has done during previous elections.
“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
This statement is in line with the comments of Brian Nichols, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States, during his speech this Wednesday at the Organization of American States (OAS).
The United States supports Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado.
Nichols said that “it is clear that Edmundo González Urrutia defeated Nicolás Maduro by millions of votes. The tabulation of those detailed results clearly shows an irrefutable truth: Edmundo González Urrutia won with 67% of those votes compared to Maduro’s 30%,” added the U.S. official.
"And simply put, there are not enough votes in the remaining recount records to overcome such a deficit."
False results disclosed by the CNE
The National Electoral Council of Venezuela, led by chavista Elvis Amoroso, reported that Maduro had won, but they have not shown, so far, the voting records that support those results.
In this situation, Nichols, representing the White House, accused the Chavista government of not wanting to show the real results and is pressuring, along with the entire international community, for them to do so:
"Either they know that the actual results show that Edmundo González clearly won the elections and they do not want to share the results. Or they know that the true results show that Edmundo González clearly won the elections and Maduro's CNE needs time to prepare falsified results to support their false claim," he added.
María Corina Machado published the results of the polling stations
According to the CNE, Maduro won with 51,2% and González Urrutia obtained 44,2%. However, the opposition says that the real numbers are: 7,173,152 votes for Edmundo and 3,250,424 votes for Maduro with 81.85% of the precincts counted.