Venezuela opposition leader calls on the international community to step up pressure on Maduro

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Thursday vowed to keep the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to leave office in January.

She also urged the international community to rise to the occasion by immediately recognizing her faction’s presidential candidate as the winner of the election in July, and implement measures to hold government officials accountable for abuses unleashed after the vote.

Machado, speaking to reporters online from an undisclosed location in Venezuela, reaffirmed her commitment to negotiate incentives and guarantees that could lead to a peaceful transition of power.

“We, the Venezuelan people, have done everything,” she said. “We competed with the rules of tyranny ... and we won, and we proved it. So, if the world or some government is thinking of looking the other way, imagine where sovereign will and popular sovereignty end up in the Western world. It would mean that elections are worthless.”

Her comments came three days after the country’s justice system, which is loyal to the ruling party, issued an arrest warrant for former diplomat Edmundo González, who represented the main opposition coalition in the July 28 election.

While the National Electoral Council — stacked with ruling party supporters — declared Maduro the winner, it never released vote tallies backing their claim. However, the opposition coalition claimed that González defeated Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin and offered as proof vote tallies from more than 80% of the electronic voting machines used in the election.

Thousands of people, including minors, took to the streets across Venezuela hours after the electoral council’s announcement. The protests were largely peaceful, but demonstrators also toppled statues of Maduro’s predecessor, the late leader Hugo Chávez, threw rocks at law enforcement officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.

Maduro’s government responded to the demonstrations with full force. A Wednesday report from Human Rights Watch implicated state security forces and gangs aligned with the ruling party in some of the 24 deaths that occurred during the protests.

“They have no limits in their cruelty,” Machado told reporters Thursday.

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White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday condemned the “unjustified arrest warrant” of González, characterizing it as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force.” Kirby said the U.S. is considering a range of options to show Maduro and his allies that “their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

Under the Biden administration, Venezuela’s government has been granted various forms of economic relief from economic sanctions the U.S. imposed over the years to try to topple Maduro. Earlier this year, it ended some of the relief when the government increased repression efforts against members of the opposition, civil society and others it considers as adversaries.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, on Thursday insisted his office had sought the warrant because González, 75, failed to appear three times to answer questions in a criminal investigation focused on the publication online of the tally sheets obtained by the opposition. Saab told reporters that the publication constitutes an usurpation of powers exclusive of the National Electoral Council and claimed that the opposition’s vote records are false.

“You shared the website on your (social media) networks,” Saab said, referring to González. “Explain why you shared it if it is false.”

Saab’s claim contradicts experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which at the invitation of Maduro’s government observed the election and then determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. In a statement critical of the election, the U.N. experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory, but they said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.