Venezuelan opposition thanks 11 countries for “not endorsing” Supreme Court support for Maduro

EFE

Venezuela’s main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), welcomed on Friday the decision of 11 American countries not to endorse the confirmation of the reelection of Nicolás Maduro made on Thursday by the Supreme Court of Venezuela (TSJ), controlled by judges close to Chavez.

“We express our gratitude to the governments of Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, the United States, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay for maintaining their firm position of not endorsing the TSJ’s announcement on the votes of July 28,” the day of the presidential elections, the bloc said in a statement.

“Popular sovereignty must be respected and the State institutions are bound to it,” added the PUD in its statement, which claims that its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, won the presidential election by a wide margin, for which reason it published on a website “83% of the electoral records” to support its claim.

In a joint statement, these countries rejected the judicial expert opinion, requested by Maduro, which ended with the certification of the result announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which has still not published the disaggregated data confirming this victory, despite the fact that the disclosure of this information was included in the schedule.

The 11 governments said that the TSJ “intends to validate the results without support.”

“Our countries had already expressed their disapproval of the validity of the CNE declaration, after opposition representatives were denied access to the official count, the non-publication of the minutes and the subsequent refusal to carry out an impartial and independent audit of all of them,” they added.

In line with this argument, they recalled that “the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela warned about the lack of independence and impartiality of both institutions, the CNE and the TSJ.”

Meanwhile, the Maduro government called these 11 countries violent accomplices, accusing them of “committing an unacceptable act of interference in matters that only concern Venezuelans.” EFE