Caracas: The U.S. government officially recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González as the “president-elect” on Tuesday, months after President Nicolás Maduro declared victory in the July election.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recognized González in a post on X in which he also demanded “respect for the will” of Venezuelan voters.
The Biden administration had previously stated that González received the most votes in the disputed July 28 election, but had stopped short of officially recognizing him as president-elect.
Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, dominated by Maduro loyalists, declared him the winner shortly after polls closed, but unlike past elections, no detailed vote counts were released.
However, the opposition coalition gathered tally sheets from 80% of Venezuela’s electronic voting machines and published them online. González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed the records showed he won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro.
“We deeply appreciate the recognition of the sovereign will of all Venezuelans,” González said in a post on X shortly after Blinken’s statement Tuesday. “This gesture honors the desire for change of our people and the civic feat that we carried out together on July 28.”
After a warrant was issued for his arrest over an investigation into the release of the vote tally sheets, González fled Venezuela for exile in Spain in September.
In response to Blinken’s remarks, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil launched personal attacks.
“In the last days of his government, he should dedicate himself to reflecting on his failures, getting rid of imperial and colonial complexes and going to write the memoirs of how the Bolivarian Revolution made him bite the dust of defeat, just like his predecessors,” Gil said of Blinken in a statement, which did not mention election results.
Maduro and electoral authorities have rejected repeated calls from the U.S., the European Union, Colombia, Brazil and other nations to show the detailed vote records that back up the president’s reelection.
Swift condemnation of the lack of post-election transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, whose members are aligned with the ruling party, to audit the results. The high court reaffirmed his victory.
Experts from the United Nations and the U.S.-based Carter Center, which observed the election at the invitation of Maduro’s government, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. The U.N. experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory but said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.
Earlier in the week, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, who has friendly relations with Maduro, reversed his support for the July elections, calling the vote a “mistake.”
Petro spoke in an interview with Brazilian news outlet Globo News, which released excerpts online that Petro’s office shared Tuesday on social media. Petro told the news outlet Monday while visiting Brazil for the G20 summit that he initially was in favor of Venezuela holding the elections, but that he later decided that the vote was not “free.”
“I think the elections were a mistake,” Petro said. His office did not immediately respond to a request for him to elaborate on the reasons for his change of heart.
Petro, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — all leftists friendly with Maduro — attempted to make peace as the results came under dispute, but the effort went nowhere.
Venezuela’s next presidential term begins on January 10, with Maduro already receiving an invitation from the National Assembly, controlled by the ruling party, for his swearing-in ceremony.
(with agency inputs)
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