Allegations of fraud and manipulation by Nicolás Maduro surround the official result of the presidential election in Venezuela. The EU is making a clear demand.
The European Union will not recognize the official result of the presidential election in Venezuela without a full disclosure of the electoral documents. This was announced by the spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Peter Stano, on Sunday evening.
After an election last Sunday that was accompanied by allegations of fraud, the party-line electoral authority CNE declared authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, the winner of the election. However, it has not yet published the detailed results for the individual voting districts. According to the opposition, these showed that its candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won by a clear margin over Maduro.
Nicolás Maduro continues to withhold documents
Any attempt to delay the full publication of the official election results will only further undermine their credibility, the EU statement continued. Stano also expressed the EU’s concern about a growing number of “arbitrary arrests” and the ongoing harassment of the opposition.
The USA and half a dozen Latin American countries have already recognized opposition candidate González as the winner. On Sunday, Germany and other European countries called for the publication of the election documents. “We express our great concern about the situation in Venezuela following last Sunday’s presidential elections,” said a joint statement from Germany, France, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.
Source: Stern
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