As unrest grows across Venezuela over Sunday’s presidential election, the U.S.-based Carter Center says the disputed vote that ended with President Nicolas Maduro being declared the winner “cannot be considered democratic.”
The non-governmental organization founded by former President Jimmy Carter and his late wife, Rosalynn, deployed a team of 17 election experts to the South American country to observe the vote. In a statement issued late Tuesday, the center said the vote “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity.”
Venezuela’s electoral council, which is controlled by Maduro, announced early Monday that the president had won the election with 51% of the vote compared to 44% for challenger Edmundo González. The council’s results widely contradicted exit polling of voters that showed González winning by a large margin.
The results did not include vote tallies from individual polling centers, which election watchdogs said was critical for determining the accuracy of the vote count. The Carter Center said it could not verify or corroborate the announced results, adding that the electoral council’s failure to reveal the vote totals “constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles.”
The statement also criticized the council for taking actions that demonstrated “a clear bias” towards Maduro. Among the issues pointed out by the Carter Center included making it difficult for Venezuelans at home and abroad to register to vote, interfering with registrations of parties and candidates, and frequent attempts by authorities to restrict the opposition’s campaign activities, including “harassment or intimidation” of people providing goods and services to the main opposition campaign.
Hours after Maduro was declared the winner, González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told reporters they had obtained more than 70% of tally sheets from the voting showing Gonzalez winning more than 6 million votes, with Maduro winning just over 2 million votes.
The announcement of Maduro’s victory immediately triggered angry protests in the capital, Caracas, and across Venezuela that have turned violent and deadly. The Venezuelan-based human rights group Foro Penal says at least 16 people have been killed in the protests, which has resulted in the toppling of at least one statue of the late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor.
The defense ministry says at least one soldier has been killed and 48 other security officers have been injured since the protests broke out. Attorney General Tarek William Saab said at least 750 people have been arrested and are facing charges of terrorism and other crimes.
Saab issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for González and Machado, whom he has accused of attacking the electoral system without offering any evidence. The opposition party Voluntad Popular said Tuesday that leader Freddy Superlano had been taken away by armed masked men.
Maduro and a key ally, National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez, on Tuesday called for the arrests of both González and Machado, who was prevented from running for office after a ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Court. Rodriguez accused González of leading a “fascist conspiracy.” The president also challenged González to a face-to-face confrontation during a speech from the balcony of the presidential palace Miraflores.
Machado and González ignored the threats from Maduro and Rodriguez as they held a rally in Caracas outside the United Nations mission attended by thousands of supporters, many of them from working-class neighborhoods that have been electoral strongholds of Chavez and Maduro.
The results have been greeted with skepticism from several of Venezuela’s neighbors. Costa Rica’s foreign ministry has offered political asylum to both Machado and González, as well as six members of the opposition who have sought shelter at the Argentinian embassy. The two nations joined Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay in a joint statement Monday calling for a transparent count of the vote.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded by recalling the country’s diplomats from Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama and Peru and Uruguay, as well as Chile.
Agence France Presse says the Maduro government has cut diplomatic ties with Peru after Lima recognized González as Venezuela’s president-elect.
The White House issued a statement Tuesday saying U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva to discuss the situation in Venezuela. The statement said Biden and Lula “agreed on the need for the immediate release of full, transparent, and detailed voting data,” and that the election “represents a critical moment for democracy in the hemisphere.”
The Organization of American States will hold an urgent meeting Wednesday in Washington D.C. to discuss the situation.
Maduro’s victory has been recognized by Bolivia, China, Cuba, Honduras, Iran, Nicaragua and Russia.
Maduro is closing out his second term as president, and Sunday’s vote represented his toughest electoral challenge. The oil-rich nation has been mired in chaos under Maduro’s autocratic rule since taking power after Chavez’s death in 2013, which has suffered from hyperinflation and severe food shortages due to the collapse of the oil industry, prompting millions of Venezuelans to flee the country.