30 de julio 2024
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Dozens of people have been arbitrarily arrested in the last hours in Venezuela, following multiple protests in Caracas and other cities of the country, in view of the widely questioned victory of Nicolás Maduro, after the presidential elections of Sunday, July 28. The Chavista regime confirmed several of the arrests, which independent media estimate at 46. Meanwhile, preliminary reports also mention several deaths.
Thousands of citizens came out to protest against the results announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which gives Maduro 51.2% of the votes, a figure questioned by the opposition and dozens of countries of the international community.
Hundreds of demonstrators also knocked down statues of former president Hugo Chavez ---deceased in 2013--- in states such as La Guaria, Falcon, Carabobo and Guarico. In a televised address, in which he confirmed dozens of arrests, Maduro attributed these acts to “criminal groups” that “attacked” ---according to him--- the “best president Venezuela has had in 150 years”.
According to Maduro, there were also attacks to “a hundred” of the more than 15,000 voting centers authorized for the elections, destruction of “electoral materials”, burning of “mayors' offices” and aggressions against members of the National Armed Forces and agents of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), allegations that the authorities did not make on Sunday, the day of the elections, when they assured that the day had passed without incidents.
According to the Government, at least 23 military personnel have been injured, “some with firearms, victims of the violent acts” on Monday, July 29. EFE reported that members of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB, militarized police) and the Bolivarian National Police used tear gas and fired buckshot at demonstrators who were peacefully protesting in an area of Caracas until the arrival of the troops, and detained about twenty of them.
Maduro further isolates Venezuela
Several diplomatic missions were also forced to leave Venezuela after Maduro demanded Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, Dominican Republic and Uruguay “the immediate withdrawal of their representatives in Venezuelan territory”. The Chavista government qualifies as “interfering actions and declarations” the requests of the countries to respect the popular will in the electoral results.
The Chilean Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, said that the decision to expel the Chilean diplomats and those of six other countries of the region is “worrying”, “shameful” and “incomprehensible” and assured that the measure “leaves in abandonment” the more than 700,000 Venezuelans living in Chile. The minister explained that the decision does not imply a total rupture of diplomatic relations, but “in practice it means that there are no diplomatic delegations in either country”.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric was one of the first leaders to demand transparency in the vote count early Monday morning. The progressive leader warned that the results offered by the CNE “are hard to believe” and that his country will not recognize “any result that is not verifiable”.
Also from Buenos Aires, Foreign Minister Diana Mondino, thanked Venezuelans who gathered in the vicinity of the Argentine Embassy in Caracas, after being alerted about an alleged attempt to take over the diplomatic seat by a group of policemen. The episode referred to by the head of the Argentine diplomacy was denounced by one of the six opponents to the Venezuelan government who have been taking refuge in the official residence of the Argentine Embassy in Caracas since March 26, after the Prosecutor's Office accused them of several crimes, such as conspiracy and treason.
Costa Rica, meanwhile, recalled that it has had no personnel or embassy in Caracas since the diplomatic rupture in October 2020, and that in 2023 it only resumed consultative relations attended from consulates in Panama, Colombia and the Dominican Republic. The previous Government of Costa Rica, headed by Carlos Alvarado, did not recognize the 2019 elections in Venezuela. The current government (2022-2026) of Rodrigo Chaves, reestablished consular relations in 2023 with Venezuela. On Sunday, Chaves qualified as “fraudulent” the proclamation of Maduro as president of Venezuela.
At the same time, the Government announced the temporary suspension, as of July 31, of commercial flights to and from Panama and the Dominican Republic, in rejection of the “interfering actions” of these countries. He added that the suspension also responds to “the presumption of the use of civil aviation for purposes not compatible with the principles of security”.
Support from Cuba, Russia, China and Nicaragua
On the other hand, Maduro received the support of several peers. Cuba expressed its “solidarity and support”, in the face of what it described as “imperialist siege, external interference” and “right-wing attacks”. For the Cuban government, a political ally of Caracas, the criticism of Sunday's process is part of a “media and political manipulation” aimed at “destabilizing and generating violence to attempt a coup against the Bolivarian and Chavista government and the Civic-Military Union”, according to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who wrote in X.
In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo considered that their Venezuelan ally and counterpart is facing a “new coup attempt”. In a statement released in Managua they said: “We denounce before the international community what according to our own experiences before the imperialists of the earth is becoming more and more evident”.
Also: “We denounce to the world that the people of (Simon) Bolivar, of (Hugo) Chavez, of Nicolas, who have resisted and defeated all attempts of humiliation and destruction of their rights, by winning once again in these elections, have defeated the empires and their impudence, and are already facing a new coup d'état attempt”, they added.
The Kremlin called on the Venezuelan opposition to accept its defeat in Sunday's presidential elections and congratulate Maduro. “We see that the opposition does not want to resign itself and accept its defeat, although we believe it should do so and congratulate the winner of the elections,” Dmitry Peskov, presidential spokesman, said at his daily telephone press briefing.
Peskov also considered “very important”, in reference to the post-election protests that have broken out in that country, “that attempts to heat up the situation inside Venezuela are not encouraged by third countries”.
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jiping sent a congratulatory message to his Venezuelan counterpart. “Since taking office, Maduro has led the Venezuelan government and its people to choose a path of development that suits their national conditions, making great achievements in their national construction,” Xi said, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.
The Asian leader said that China and Venezuela are “good friends who trust each other” as well as “good partners walking toward common development.”
“China, as always, will firmly support Venezuela's efforts to safeguard its national sovereignty and dignity as well as its sovereignty and the just Venezuelan cause of opposing foreign interference,” he added.
Maduro promises more repression
The Venezuelan president, who is trying to run for a third consecutive term in office, said that the authorities are “following up on the acts of violence promoted by extremist violence”.
“We have witnessed a set of events (…) violent attacks, it could be called criminal, terrorist (…) several dozens of these people have been captured, in direct flagrancy,” Maduro said. According to him, 80% of those captured “have criminal records” and some of them returned to the country in deportation flights from the United States, but he did not provide their identities or further details.
“I call for the most powerful reaction of repudiation to these criminal acts, carried out by delinquents of the comanditos”, said Maduro, in reference to the groups of citizens related to the Plataforma Unitaria Democrática (PUD), the main opposition bloc, a sector he accused of having a plan to ‘destabilize Venezuela again’.
73% of the precincts give the victory to Edmundo González
The anti-Chavez leader María Corina Machado assures that the majority opposition has managed to obtain 73% of the ballots issued in the presidential elections of this Sunday, which give the victory to former ambassador Edmundo González Urrutia, with an “overwhelming” difference, in the elections, even though the electoral body gave the win to Chavez's Nicolás Maduro.
“We have 73.20% of the ballots 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”, said in a press conference the former deputy, together with the standard bearer of the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), the largest opposition bloc.
Machado indicated that, according to the 73.20% of the tally sheets, Maduro obtained 2,759,256 votes, while González Urrutia 6,275,182, and “there are more missing”.
The opponent explained that all these minutes were verified, totalized and digitalized, to be published in a “robust” web portal that “several global leaders are already consulting” and that will be made public in the next hours, so that everyone can see the “evidence of the victory” of Gonzalez Urrutia.
On his part, the former ambassador promised that “the will expressed yesterday (Sunday) through their vote” will be “respected, that is the only way towards peace”.
“We have in our hands the minutes that show our categorical and mathematically irreversible triumph”, said the candidate, who thanked the international community for its solidarity and support.
On Monday, July 29, the National Electoral Council (CNE) officially proclaimed Maduro president, after announcing on Sunday night that the chavista, in power since 2013, won the elections with 51.2% of the votes, the same result he gave when 80% of the polling stations had been counted and with more than two million votes still to be counted.
This article was published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.
