US backs opposition figure Edmundo González ahead of Venezuela election audit

The United States has recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González’s victory in Venezuela’s election, even though the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has not audited the results. In response, Nicolás Maduro said the US “must keep its nose out of Venezuela.”

The US State Department relied on documents released by the opposition. Edmundo González’s campaign published on the internet the electoral records of the polling stations to which they had access, representing around 80% of the total votes cast. According to these documents, González defeated Maduro.

“The election result overwhelmingly demonstrates the will of the Venezuelan people: the democratic opposition candidate, Edmundo González, obtained the majority of votes in Sunday’s elections. Venezuelans voted, and their votes must be counted,” said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday (1).

Until then, the White House had not declared support for Edmundo’s victory, only requesting the publication of detailed data from each of the country’s 30,000 polling stations, which has not yet been done by the CNE.

“The CNE’s quick declaration announcing Nicolás Maduro as the winner of the presidential election was not accompanied by any evidence. The CNE has not yet published disaggregated data or any of the vote count records,” the US body said in a statement.

Because the CNE did not publish the results, the U.S. State Department said that “the democratic opposition published more than 80 percent of the vote count results received directly from polling stations across Venezuela. These results indicate that Edmundo González Urrutia received the majority of votes in this election by an insurmountable margin.”

The US government also said it had held “extensive consultations with partners and allies around the world” and that none of them concluded that Maduro had received a majority of the votes.

In response to Washington’s stance, the Venezuelan president declared that “the United States must keep its nose out of Venezuela, because the sovereign people are the ones who govern in Venezuela, who set the tone, who decide,” as reported by Telesur, the country’s state-run media outlet.

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President Nicolás Maduro filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on Wednesday (31) requesting an expert analysis of the minutes, declaring that he is willing to present 100% of the minutes that are in the hands of the PSUV (government party). The TSJ summoned all ten candidates for 3:00 pm (Brasília time) this Friday (2) to appear before the Court and begin the investigation into the results of the election.

As the minutes with the voting results in each ballot box are distributed to the inspectors of each party present at the voting location, it would be possible to check the different documents, which have codes that would prove their veracity.

The US position differs from that of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, which on Thursday (1) issued a joint statement asking Venezuelan authorities to present disaggregated election data, without stating that none of the candidates won last Sunday’s vote (28).

In the early hours of Monday (29), the CNE announced that Nicolás Maduro won the election with 51.21% of the votes, while Edmundo González had 44%. However, as the data per polling station was not published, the opposition, international observers and several countries questioned the result.