Venezuelan opposition candidates called on President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday to end “violence and persecution,” hours after the country’s Supreme Court said its ruling on a disputed July 28 election could not be appealed.
Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who claims to have won the election by a landslide, posted a video on social media calling on President Maduro to allow freedom of political expression.
“On behalf of all Venezuelans, we call for an end to the violence and persecution and the immediate release of all our compatriots who have been arbitrarily detained,” González Urrutia said, referring to post-election unrest that has left 24 people dead and 2,200 arrested.
“It is not a crime to demand respect for the Constitution, nor is it a crime to demonstrate peacefully to defend the will of millions of Venezuelans,” the 74-year-old former diplomat added.
The message from Gonzalez Urrutia, who has not been seen in public for more than a week, came after the Supreme Court said its upcoming ruling on the disputed election would be “final.”
The court is “continuing its evaluation, which began on Aug. 5, 2024, with a view to issuing a final decision, which will be final and binding,” said court president Carisia Rodrigues.
Most observers say the court is loyal to the Maduro government, which claims a narrow victory in the election.
Opposition leaders said Gonzalez Urrutia had won in a landslide victory, pointing to official polling station tallies as evidence.
President Maduro himself summoned the Supreme Court on August 1 to “validate” his victory.
The court heard testimony this week from all the candidates, including Maduro, except for Gonzalez Urrutia, who said he feared arrest.
A key opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, a past presidential candidate who has been barred from running this time, says she is living in hiding.
Both Gonzalez Urrutia and Machado are under investigation for crimes including “incitement to disobedience” by the Justice Ministry, another state institution seen as loyal to President Maduro.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell “Respecting the will of the Venezuelan people is the only way for Venezuela to restore democracy and find a solution to its current political and socio-economic crisis that is guaranteed to all,” the president said Saturday.
Borrell said the 27 member states had “unanimously” called for the release of voting records and an independent verification, echoing similar calls from Latin American countries and the United States.
The National Electoral Commission (CNE) announced on August 2 that Maduro had won with 52% of the vote and certified his victory, but refused to release accurate results from polling stations, claiming that the data had been hacked.
In contrast, the opposition released a tally showing Gonzalez Urrutia winning 67 percent of the vote, a result that Maduro denies.
The opposition and many observers say the allegations of election hacking are a fabrication invented by the government to create an excuse for not releasing the election records.
Maduro denied those accusations on Friday, saying the hacking had been “brutal,” involving “30 million attacks per minute on the CNE and Venezuela’s electronic systems.”
Opposition lawyer Perkins Rocha said that by going to the Supreme Court, Maduro was effectively admitting that “no one believes the CNE,” adding that “President Maduro knows he can count on (the court) to kneel before him.”
During his time in office, Maduro has overseen the collapse of the country, with the once oil-rich nation’s gross domestic product plummeting by 80 percent due to domestic economic mismanagement and international sanctions.
More than seven million Venezuelans have fled the country of 30 million since Maduro came to power in 2013, according to the United Nations, many of them to other Latin American countries or the United States.
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