US says Maduro’s election results “make no sense”

The statements were offered by the State Department’s representative for Latin America, Brian Nichols / Photo: AFP

The United States said Wednesday that the results of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) that gave victory to President Nicolas Maduro in Sunday’s elections are meaningless due to the “complete lack of transparency” in the process.

The State Department’s head of Latin America, Brian Nichols, echoed on social media the statement published on Tuesday by the Carter Center, a U.S. organization invited as an observer in Venezuela, which concluded that the elections did not have democratic guarantees.

“The Carter Center’s statement confirms once again what millions of Venezuelans already knew: the complete lack of transparency in the publication of the results makes the National Electoral Council’s announcement of July 29 meaningless,” he said.

In the same message, Nichols claimed that “the will of Venezuelan voters must be respected.”

The CNE declared Maduro’s victory early Monday morning with 51% of the votes, but the main opposition bloc claims to have in its possession 85% of the votes cast in the elections, which would give a wide margin of victory to its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, who stood in place of opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was disqualified from running.

The UN, the European Union, the United States, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Argentina and Spain, among others, have asked Venezuelan electoral authorities to publish the voting records to verify Maduro’s alleged victory.

Nichols on Tuesday rejected calls from some Chavista leaders who publicly called for the arrest of Edmundo González and María Corina Machado over protests that have occurred in the country following the elections.

“Venezuelans have the constitutional right to express their opinions freely and without retaliation,” he said.

Washington / EFE