Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has called allegations of electoral fraud “a trap” backed by the United States to justify “a coup d’état” and thanked Brazil, Colombia and Mexico for their efforts to reach a political agreement in his country.
Maduro criticized the head of White House diplomacy, Antony Blinken, for backing the opposition’s accusations of fraud, after the US official said in a statement on Thursday that there was “overwhelming evidence” of a victory by opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia in the presidential elections last Sunday, July 28.
“Blinken is desperate in an unusual gesture in American diplomacy and comes out to say that they have the results,” the president said. “What they have is the trap that they tried to impose,” he added at a press conference before foreign correspondents at the presidential palace in Caracas.
Maduro thanked the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; and Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for their efforts in favor of a political agreement amid opposition protests in which at least eleven civilians have died, according to complaints from human rights organizations, and more than a thousand have been arrested.
“President Lula, President Petro and President López Obrador are working together to ensure that Venezuela is respected, so that the United States does not do what it is doing,” said the socialist leader. “I thank them, I thank them for all of Venezuela,” he added.
Maduro and the president of the parliament with a pro-government majority, Jorge Rodríguez, rejected the validity of the minutes published by the Opposition on a website, by showing documents that were released and which were missing the signatures of witnesses from political parties and operators of the machines used for voting, signatures required in the process.
“This is pure garbage,” Rodriguez said.
The electoral authority confirmed this Friday, with 97 percent of the minutes reviewed, the reelection of Maduro with 52 percent of the votes against 43 percent for González Urrutia, nominated by the opposition alliance Plataforma Unitaria following the political disqualification of its original candidate, María Corina Machado.
Maduro accuses Machado and Gonzalez Urrutia of promoting acts of violence and a “coup d’état” with the support of Washington. On Wednesday he said that both leaders should “be behind bars.”
The President considered that Blinken’s statement was a response to “the sovereign attempt” of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to “avoid damage.”
Maduro said there were plans for a violent “ambush” at a demonstration called in Caracas for Saturday by Machado, who declared herself “underground.” She called for protests that day in “all cities” of Venezuela.
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