By Marlyn Montilla
29 Jul 2024, 15:46 PM EDT
The Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office, headed by Attorney General Tarek William Saab, announced that an investigation has been opened into an alleged plan by people related to the Venezuelan opposition to change the results of the presidential elections, in which Nicolás Maduro was already proclaimed president by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which was rejected by a large part of the Venezuelan people and the opposition.
Saab said in a press conference that the electoral system suffered an “attack from North Macedonia” on Sunday, with the aim of “manipulating the data that was being received” on the results of the votes in the 15,000 electoral centres set up.
“They wanted to tamper with the voting records of the automated system,” said the attorney general, who blamed the opposition leader María Corina Machado, the former deputy Lester Toledo and the former mayor of the Chacao municipality, Caracas, Leopoldo López, the latter two of whom are in exile, for these plans.
According to Saab, it is “an attack that slowed down the sending of records for the vote count,” who, according to the government prosecutor, said that he appointed two prosecutors to carry out the respective investigations in the case.
He also stressed that the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office “will be monitoring any act that attempts to initiate an escalation of violence to tarnish the democratic celebration,” warning that such actions will constitute crimes that carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Therefore, Saab urged Venezuelans to “not allow themselves to be used in destabilizing agendas that respond to petty interests alien to the national interest, that seek chaos, unrest and the suffering of the majority.”
However, Venezuela’s opposition claims that several audits of the election results are still pending. Maduro was formally proclaimed one day after the elections despite the accusations of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), which claims that its leader and presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia emerged victorious in the elections with a large difference between him and Maduro.
González Urrutia denounced that “all the rules have been violated” due, among other issues, to the CNE’s refusal to deliver to the PUD the minutes of the total votes in more than 50% of the voting centers.
Keep reading:
- VIDEO: “Cacerolazos” (pot and pan protests) reported throughout Caracas against Nicolás Maduro’s victory
- Protests and cacerolazos in Venezuela, live: latest news from the elections
- EU foreign minister calls for transparency following Venezuela election results