Petro says that Colombia and Brazil will not recognize Maduro if the minutes are not presented

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday that his country and Brazil will not recognize Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the Venezuelan presidential elections if the minutes of the elections held on July 28 are not presented.

“I’m going to talk with President Lula now. We agreed on one point: if there is no presentation of the minutes, there will be no recognition,” Petro said in an interview with CNN in New York, where he is participating in the UN General Assembly.

The Colombian president and his Mexican and Brazilian counterparts, Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, respectively, have tried to mediate in the crisis that Venezuela has been experiencing since the National Electoral Council (CNE) of that country announced Maduro’s disputed victory.

Neither of these countries has yet recognised President Maduro’s re-election, nor have they opted for the victory of opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia, and they are calling for the publication of the electoral records and opening avenues for dialogue between the parties.

However, this is the first time that Petro has said that neither his country nor Brazil will recognize Maduro if the minutes are not presented.

“Previous error”

For Petro, there was a “prior error” before the Venezuelan elections because “a society was forced to dispute political power without freedom, and the issue of freedom applies to all sides that are fighting.”

“There was no freedom for the opposition, because the main candidate (María Corina Machado) did not participate and it is a problem today because, who do you talk to in Venezuela on the side of the opposition? And for the side of the Venezuelan government as well because a country under economic sanctions is not free to vote,” said the head of state.

According to the Colombian, all the actors are now “trapped” in the crisis.

“In the face of this situation, you have an opposition that feels like it is the Government but is not in the Government, and a Government that did not allow the minutes to be seen, which therefore cannot legitimize the elections, but which is in the Government.”

These are “two absolutely polarized and distant positions,” to which, he believes, must be added the presidential elections in the United States in November, which, he believes, will influence the situation in the South American country.

On August 22, the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) of Venezuela, chaired by Chavista Caryslia Rodríguez, validated the official results of the July 28 elections, which gave victory to Maduro, questioned inside and outside the country.

Meanwhile, the majority opposition – grouped in the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) – maintains that its standard-bearer, González Urrutia, is the winner of the elections based on “83.5% of the electoral records” collected by witnesses and members of the table on the day of the elections, to reinforce its claim.

To date, the CNE has not published the disaggregated results – as established in its schedule – that confirm Maduro’s victory, despite numerous requests from the opposition and a large part of the international community.

EU / EFE