Unified western response to Venezuela’s fraudulent election stymied

U.S. coordinates with regional allies while resistance from Hungary delays EU response
VOA.GOV
Protesters in central Caracas two days after President Maduro claimed victory, enabling his third term in office

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Street protests expanded on July 31 in Caracas, as thousands took action to demand that President Nicolas Maduro accept defeat in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election. The Caracas Street protests, which the Maduro government denounced as an attempted “coup,” began on July 30 after the country’s electoral authority, largely staffed with Maduro’s supporters, declared that he had won a third six-year term with fifty one percent of the vote.

Opposition candidate Edmundo González announced the day after the election that his campaign had possession of the proof needed to show he won. Regarding the evidence, González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told the media that they had obtained about eighty five percent of the all-important tally sheets from the July 28 election, and they show González with more than double Maduro’s votes.

The U.S.-based Carter Center (headquarters in Atlanta Georgia), one of the handful of organizations allowed by Maduro’s government to monitor the election, noted in a statement late on July 30 that the election “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic,” and blamed Venezuelan authorities for a “complete lack of transparency,” taking its election analysis about as far as an international observation team can safely go in terms of public criticism in an obviously non-democratic environment such as today’s Venezuela. The Carter Center fielded a technical mission of seventeen observers across four cities.

At least 11 people have been killed in different parts of Venezuela since the election in incidents related to the polling or associated protests, according to the local human rights group Foro Penal. Police have increasingly been forced to use tear gas against the protesters, media reports indicate, and over 700 have been arrested to date.

It’s all about the tallies

So far, the pro-Maduro National Electoral Council (NEC) has not released any results from the polling center level, which come from tally sheets that the country’s thirty thousand plus electronic voting machines print after polls close. It is not obligated to do so, but in previous elections the NEC has posted the figures online within hours.

Pressure on Maduro and the NEC to release the tally sheets is increasing. U.S. President Joe Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke by phone and agreed that Venezuela must release the data, noting the election’s outcome “represents a critical moment for democracy in the hemisphere,” according to a White House media release on the call.

Biden and Lula “agreed on the need for immediate release of full, transparent, and detailed voting data at the polling station level by the Venezuelan electoral authorities.”

For his part, Maduro said on July 31 that he asked the country’s Supreme Court to conduct an audit of the presidential election, amid international calls to release detailed vote counts. As one might expect, few observers see the court, staffed with Maduro appointees, as capable of acting independently.  Maduro also told reporters that the ruling party is ready to show the totality of the tally sheets from the election.

Maduro insisted to reporters that there had been a plot against his government and that the electoral system was hacked, but he didn’t give any specifics or present any evidence.  He said he would address the nation in the coming days.

EU’s reaction delayed after Hungary blocks statements 

EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell said on July 31 the bloc could not recognize Venezuela’s election result until all votes were counted and records provided, amid international concerns over the integrity of the vote. Borrell said Venezuela’s NEC had announced the vote results on the basis of eighty percent of ballots counted, while the Venezuelan opposition had published very different results. “That is an additional reason for not recognizing the results until they will be fully and independently verified,” Borrell told reporters during a visit to Vietnam. The members of the 27-nation bloc will decide on possible next steps only after the full results are made available, he added.

The EU failed to put on a united front on Venezuela’s contested election after Hungary vetoed a statement that expressed the bloc’s concern about alleged “flaws and irregularities” in the voting and called for greater transparency. Realizing that Hungary would likely remain intransigent, Borrell has now issued several statements on the elections using his own name instead of seeking backing from the EU’s 27 member countries.

Both Russia and China have congratulated Maduro on his “re-election.”

G7 Group reacts, bypassing EU member state vetoes

Bypassing individual EU member states and their vetoes, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. as well as the High Representative of the European Union, were ultimately able to issue the following statement on August 1:

“We, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States of America and the High Representative of the EU, express our solidarity with the people of Venezuela, who peacefully exercised their right to vote in large numbers on July 28 to shape the future of their country.

Independent domestic and international observers’ reports have raised serious concerns about the announced results of Venezuela’s Presidential elections and about the way the electoral process was conducted, especially regarding the irregularities and lack of transparency in the final tabulation of the votes. It is of paramount importance that the result reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.

We call on relevant representatives to publish the detailed electoral results in full transparency and we ask electoral representatives to immediately share all information with the opposition and independent observers.

As the process unfolds, we call for maximum restraint in the country and for a peaceful, democratic and Venezuelan-led solution.”

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