A “great victory”: thousands protest against Nicolás Maduro

CARACAS (EFE).— Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said yesterday that the worldwide demonstration on Saturday in defense of the widely considered victory of Edmundo González Urrutia, standard-bearer of the largest anti-Chavez coalition, marked “a fundamental milestone” and “a great victory” for the fight against the official result of the presidential election, which declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner.

“We showed that Venezuela is united as a nation. (…) There is no distance, nor time that can separate us. We showed that the freedom of Venezuela is a global cause,” said María Corina through X.

He also acknowledged that “citizens from all over the world” have assumed the importance of the anti-Chavez struggle, after demonstrations were registered in more than 350 cities on “five continents”, where Venezuelans demanded respect for González Urrutia’s “victory”, the release of those considered political prisoners and the publication of the electoral records.

“We have achieved another objective of our strategy. New steps and new victories are coming,” he said.

“They thought that by persecuting our witnesses we would not be able to obtain our records, but within 24 hours we had the records digitalized,” said María Corina during the demonstration in Caracas.

The Venezuelan opposition leader, who is barred by the regime from holding public office, said during her speech that it is time to move on to a “fifth stage” that consists of “collecting” what was achieved in the elections and that “every vote is respected.”

“There is nothing above the voice of the sovereign and the sovereign spoke in Venezuela (…). Let the world and everyone within Venezuela recognize that the president-elect is Edmundo González Urrutia,” he said.

In an interview with Mexican journalist León Krauze from Venezuela, María Corina Machado said: “We will fight as long as it takes and we will do it as quickly as possible.”

On Saturday, Chavismo also called on its supporters throughout Venezuela to celebrate Maduro’s “victory.” He said that more than a hundred demonstrations in his favor had been registered around the world, which he said were added to the one that took place in Caracas and other cities in the Caribbean country, in support of his questioned reelection in the elections of July 28.

Twenty-one days after the presidential elections, the National Electoral Council (CNE) has not published the disaggregated results, as required by law, nor the electoral records, while the largest opposition coalition published on a website “83.5%” of these documents that — they insist — prove González Urrutia’s victory.

The records released by the opposition have been validated by several countries and national and international organizations — including the UN panel of electoral experts that observed the elections, and the Carter Center, which also sent a monitoring mission — while the government claims that they are false documents.

InterviewMexico’s position

Journalist León Krauze asked María Corina about Mexico’s position.

Question and Answer

Krauze asked her if she does not see the temptation of the Mexican government to recognize a victory of Maduro. María Corina responded that the evidence on the magnitude of the fraud is so overwhelming that “we are in an uncertain scenario where things change from one day to the next, and therefore I do not want to speculate (…) What I can assure is that everyone, those three countries (Brazil, Colombia and Mexico), the Venezuelans and the Chavistas know that Edmundo (González Urrutia) won hands down…”