OAS resolution project demanding Maduro publish electoral records fails

The newspaper

NY.-The resolution of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) calling on the Venezuelan regime to immediately publish the minutes of last Sunday’s elections did not obtain the necessary support to be approved.

In a vote held on Wednesday at an extraordinary session in Washington, the proposal received 17 votes in favor, no opposition and 11 abstentions, with five absent. For its approval, an absolute majority of the organization’s members was needed.

The text demanded that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared Nicolás Maduro the winner, “immediately publish the results of the vote” at each polling station. It also called for a full verification of the results with the presence of independent observation organizations to ensure transparency and credibility.

The resolution also underlined the importance of safeguarding human rights in Venezuela, especially the right to peaceful protest without retaliation, and emphasized the need to protect and preserve all equipment used in the electoral process, including voting records.

Argentina, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Suriname and Uruguay voted in favor.

Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Grenada, Honduras, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia abstained.

Dominica, Mexico, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela did not participate in the session.

Ambassador Ronald Sanders, chair of the Permanent Council and representative of Antigua and Barbuda, explained that the lack of consensus was due to a single phrase in the text that he did not specify. Countries that abstained or did not attend cited different reasons for their decision.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea strongly criticized those countries that abstained, calling their stance a betrayal of the OAS Democratic Charter.

“Then we wonder why our citizens, and especially our young people, do not believe us politicians,” he said. “Everyone here present, including those who were absent and those who abstained, voted in favor of the Democratic Charter (of the OAS), an instrument designed to abort regimes that want to perpetuate themselves in power,” he recalled.

International pressure on the Maduro regime to ensure the transparency of its electoral processes has been intense. Regional leaders and international organizations, such as the European Union and leaders such as Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, have urged the Venezuelan dictatorship to clarify the election results. However, both countries abstained from voting, while Mexico did not participate, aligning itself with its previous warning to stay away because it considered the actions of the OAS to be biased.

Luis Almagro, secretary general of the OAS, urged Maduro to acknowledge his electoral defeat or call new elections. In his speech, Almagro stressed that the electoral records have not yet been presented, which he considers unacceptable and devastating for democracy. He denounced the violence and imprisonment of voting witnesses and announced that he will request judicial charges against Maduro.

On the other hand, Roberto Quesada, representative of Honduras, criticized the fact that the OAS is addressing the situation in Venezuela due to the country’s absence from the organization. “When both sides of a conflict are not heard, it is impossible to be an impartial judge,” he said. Colombia, in a subsequent statement, explained that it does not consider the OAS to be the appropriate forum to deal with the Venezuelan situation and reaffirmed its commitment to seek solutions through dialogue with Brazil and Mexico.

Also during the OAS session, the US State Department representative for Latin America, Brian Nichols, said that there is “irrefutable” evidence to declare the victory of the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, in the presidential elections in Venezuela on July 28.

The diplomat urged Maduro and other countries in the “world” to recognize Gonzalez’s victory, supporting the validity of the voting records published by the opposition on a website.

The information published by the anti-Chavez movement contradicts the version of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared victory to Maduro in the early hours of Monday with 51% of the votes.

The CNE, however, has not shown the total vote counts, something that has been demanded by both the opposition and the citizens in mass protests and by part of the international community.

In response to international criticism, the Maduro regime ordered the return of all its diplomatic personnel in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Uruguay and asked these countries to withdraw their diplomatic personnel from Venezuela.Infobae.