OAS says Venezuelan elections suffered “the most aberrant manipulation”

The Organization of American States (OAS) denounced on Tuesday that the presidential elections on Sunday in Venezuela, in which President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner, suffered “the most aberrant manipulation,” in a statement from the office of its secretary general Luis Almagro.

>>> More news about Venezuela: Leopoldo López: “Petro cannot be on the side of something that is clearly a theft”

“Throughout this electoral process, the Venezuelan regime was seen applying its repressive scheme, complemented by actions aimed at completely distorting the electoral result, making that result available to the most aberrant manipulation.”the text says.

After hours of uncertainty on Sunday, Venezuela’s pro-government National Electoral Council (CNE) ultimately gave Maduro the victory with 51.2% of the votes compared to 44.2% for the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González.

But the opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, and much of the international community, including the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries, cast doubt on the results that grant Maduro his third consecutive six-year term.

OAS asks Venezuela to recognize opposition actions and accept electoral defeat

Machado said on Monday that he had copies of 73% of the voting records and projected a victory for González with 6.27 million votes compared to Maduro’s 2.75 million.

Almagro’s office said that the fact that the opposition has presented the minutes and the government has not done so “It would be laughable and pathetic if it weren’t tragic.”

“In this context, it is imperative to know about Maduro’s acceptance of the minutes held by the opposition,” as well as accepting “his electoral defeat,” the statement said.

“Failure to do so would require new elections, but in this case with the electoral observation missions of the European Union and the OAS present and a new CNE to reduce the margin of institutional irregularity that plagued this process,” he said.

The Permanent Council of the OAS called for an extraordinary meeting on Wednesday to “addressing the results of the electoral process” In Venezuela.

>>> You may be interested in: More than 700 people have been arrested in Venezuela for protests