After the announcement of Nicolás Maduro’s victory with 51.2% of the votes, according to Venezuela’s Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE, in Spanish), the opposition leader María Corina Machado refused to recognize the defeat of the presidential candidate she supported, Edmundo González Urrutia, in the Sunday (28) elections.
“We won, and everybody knows that,” said Machado at a press conference. “We want to say to the whole of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a newly elected president, and he is called Edmundo González Urrutia,” she said, contradicting the results of the ballots.
“González Urrutia had 70% of the votes; Nicolás Maduro, 30%. That’s the truth. Congratulations, Edmundo,” said Machado, accompanied by the opposition candidate.
Without evidence, the opposition states that some electoral records weren’t transmitted to the CNE.
The president of the electoral council, Elvis Amoroso, had announced shortly beforehand that Maduro had been reelected with 5.15 million votes (51.2%) against González Urrutia, with 4.45 million (44.2%), according to the first official bulletin when 80% of the votes had already been counted.
Amoroso assured that the aforementioned bulletin reflects a “conclusive and irreversible” trend and denounced an “attack on the data transmission system that delayed” the voting count.
González Urrutia, on the other hand, said that the electoral process “violated all voting rules”.
“Our message of reconciliation and peace remains valid. Our struggle continues. We will not rest until the will of the Venezuelan people is reflected [in the presidential election],” he insisted. Machado also addressed the military. “The National Armed Forces must ensure that popular sovereignty is respected. That’s what we expect,” he said.
“We won’t accept the idea that defending the truth is violence. Violence is outraging the truth,” he added, asking supporters to remain in ‘civic vigil’ in the surrounding areas of voting centers.
The Venezuelan presidential election was monitored by observers from different parts of the world, including a delegation from the Carter Center, and a panel of four experts from the United Nations (UN).
