By Luis De Jesus
29 Jul 2024, 23:49 PM EDT
Opposition leader María Corina Machado and Edmundo González said that the democratic opposition in Venezuela now has evidence of the alleged fraud committed by the Nicolás Maduro regime, through the National Electoral Council, in Sunday’s presidential elections.
Machado, in a press conference, stated that former ambassador Edmundo González was the one who won and assured that they will prove this with the electoral records they have managed to obtain.
“We have 73.20% of the votes and, with this result, our president-elect is Edmundo González Urrutia. The difference was so big, so big, the difference was overwhelming, the difference was in all the states of Venezuela,” he said.
María Corina Machado and Edmundo González called for a rally at the United Nations headquarters in Caracas on Tuesday to demonstrate that the opposition won the presidential election.
According to 73% of the votes held by the Unitary Platform, Edmundo González obtained more than 6 million votes, while Nicolás Maduro obtained just over 2,759,256. This would mean the end of Chavismo after 25 years in power.
The opposition representative has assured that all the minutes have been reviewed, totaled and digitalized, and that they will soon be available on a solid web portal that is already being consulted by several global leaders. This site will be accessible to the public in the next few hours, allowing everyone to see the “proof of the victory” of González Urrutia.
The former ambassador promised to respect “the will expressed yesterday through the vote,” considering it the only path to peace. “We have in our hands the records that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory,” the candidate declared, quoted by the Efe agency.
He also thanked the international community for its solidarity and support.
On Monday, the National Electoral Council officially proclaimed Maduro as president, after announcing on Sunday night that the Chavista leader, in power since 2013, won the election with 51.2% of the votes, the same result that was reported when 80% of the votes had been counted, leaving more than two million votes to be counted.
On the other hand, González Urrutia obtained 44.2% of the votes, according to the first and only public report of the CNE, which did not detail the destination of the remaining 2,394,268 votes.
Thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Monday in the streets of Caracas and in several regions of the country to protest against the results announced by the CNE. In several of these demonstrations, acts of repression by the military forces were reported.
Keep reading:
• Petare: Venezuela’s largest neighborhood protests against Maduro’s “fraud”
• Nicolás Maduro is proclaimed president amid rejection of the result
• Venezuelan prosecutor opens investigation into alleged opposition plan to change presidential election result