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EPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nVenezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has insisted his party is ready to present all the vote tallies from his country’s disputed election after election observers said it “could not be considered democratic”.<\/p>\n
The National Electoral Council (CNE) declaration that Mr Maduro won has sparked two days of protests, with the country’s opposition saying voting tallies show its candidate, Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez, won by a wide margin.<\/p>\n
NGOs say there have been at least 11 deaths in protest-related violence and that dozens more have been injured. <\/p>\n
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mr Maduro said again that his government\u2019s reason for not publishing the electoral results was because of a \u201chack\u201d on the electoral council website.<\/p>\n
He also claimed he had \u201cproof\u201d that the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was behind \u201cviolence\u201d.<\/p>\n
He alleged that protesters were “attacking” the constitution and asked the Supreme Court to take action, which could pave the way for more mass arrests of opposition figures or protesters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Top US diplomat for Latin America, Brian Nichols, said the evidence showed President Maduro overwhelmingly lost by “millions” of votes – endorsing vote tallies released by his opponents.<\/p>\n
“The tabulation of these detailed results clearly show an irrefutable result: Edmundo Gonzalez won with 67% of these votes compared to 30% for Maduro,” he said in remarks at an Organisation of American States (OAS) meeting, AFP reported.<\/p>\n
“While not a total result, there are not enough votes in remaining tally sheets… to overcome such a deficit,” he continued.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday the US-based Carter Center – which was invited by Venezuelan officials to monitor Sunday’s presidential poll – said it could not “verify or corroborate the results of the election declared by CNE”.<\/p>\n
The Carter Center also said that the CNE’s failure to announce the detailed results by polling station “constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles”.<\/p>\n
It added that the CNE had “demonstrated a clear bias in favour of the incumbent [President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro]” and accused the CNE of a “complete lack of transparency in announcing the results”. <\/p>\n
The opposition have said they\u2019ve obtained the majority of receipts from electronic voting machines which prove they won the election with 70% of the vote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With its statement, the Carter Center has joined a long list of countries and organisations pressuring the CNE to release detailed voting data at the polling station level, among them the US, Brazil and the EU.<\/p>\n The US state department said the international community was running out of patience waiting for Venezuelan electoral authorities to release full detailed data on their country’s election.<\/p>\n The Carter Center statement is embarrassing for the Maduro government because its observers had been complimentary about the Venezuelan electoral system in the past.<\/p>\n President Maduro has often quoted a remark by the Carter Center’s founder, former US President Jimmy Carter, who in 2012 said that “of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n More than 1,000 people have so far been detained, according to Venezuela’s attorney general, who also said that two members of the security forces had died in the protests. <\/p>\n Ms Machado has urged her supporters to remain peaceful even if provoked by the government and its allies.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, a close ally of President Maduro, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodr\u00edguez, called for the arrest of Ms Machado and Mr Gonz\u00e1lez, accusing them of leading a “fascist conspiracy”.<\/p>\n President Maduro told media on Wednesday Ms Machado and Mr Gonz\u00e1lez “should be behind bars”, AFP reported.<\/p>\n The Costa Rican foreign minister later offered Ms Machado and Mr Gonz\u00e1lez political asylum, saying that his government “had been informed of arrest warrants” against the two.<\/p>\n Ms Machado thanked the Costa Rican government but said that it was her “responsibility to continue this struggle alongside the people”. <\/p>\n In a separate social media post late on Wednesday, Ms Machado urged her supporters to “mobilise”.<\/p>\n She wrote on X: “It’s time to trust in each other. To stay active and firm.<\/p>\n “It took time to win; now it’s time to collect.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png\")
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EPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Getty](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/11c6\/live\/c2f96ca0-4f32-11ef-bf08-19dbe92f52c9.jpg.webp\")
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