The United States and several Latin American countries have already disputed the official result of the Venezuelan presidential election.
The leaders of the seven European Union member states called on Venezuela on Saturday to publish the voting records of the country’s recent presidential elections in order for the country to prove the “total transparency and honesty” of its electoral process.
In their statement, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain expressed their grave concern about the situation in Venezuela after the country’s presidential elections. Incumbent president Nicolás Maduro has declared himself the winner of the elections held last weekend, but the opposition has denied the result and claimed its own candidate Edmundo González Urrutia took the win.
– We ask the Venezuelan authorities to immediately publish all voting records, the EU leaders said in a statement. Furthermore, it emphasized that this was necessary to recognize the will of the Venezuelan people.
– The rights of all Venezuelans, especially political leaders, must be respected during this process, the statement demanded.
– We strongly condemn any arrests or threats against them.
The statement also said that the Venezuelan authorities should respect people’s right to protest and assemble peacefully.
More than a thousand people were arrested during the demonstrations
Over the past week, thousands of Venezuelans have gathered across the country to demonstrate and question the claims of the autocratic President Maduro’s election victory. At least eleven people are said to have died in the violent protests, opposition leader María Corina Machado there would be at least 20 dead.
Machado returned to the public on Saturday after hiding for several days after President Maduro threatened him with arrest. Maduro, on the other hand, announced on Saturday that Venezuela does not accept the opposition’s efforts to seize the presidency.
According to the Venezuelan authorities, more than 1,200 people have been arrested in the protests. Protests intensified again at the end of the week, when CNE, the election authority loyal to the country’s president, ratified Maduro’s victory on Friday.
Venezuela’s election result has already been disputed by, for example, the United States and the Latin American countries Argentina, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador and Uruguay. According to them, the available results show that the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia clearly won the election.
Sources: AFP, Reuters