The presidential candidate of the Venezuelan opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia – a few hours after being summoned by the Attorney General's Office, which accuses him of “conspiracy” and other crimes linked to “electoral fraud” – announces that the opposition will present “in this context” “copies of the ballot records” for the July 28 elections “in their possession”, and once again asks President Nicolás Maduro to do the same. This was stated in a video message posted on social networks.
“Dear Nicolás Maduro, it is time for you to understand, once and for all, that the solution does not lie in repression – says González – but in the independent and reliable international verification of the reports, which cannot be replaced by a ruling dictated in the margins of the Constitution. In this scenario, we will present our copies of the ballot records, which clearly show the desire of Venezuelans for change” (…) “Maduro, present the documents,” he adds, asking about starting the “democratic transition” procedures.
González Urrutia also declared that his summons to the Attorney General's Office was being made “without guaranteeing the independence” of the judicial system, describing Attorney General Tarek William Saab as a “political defendant.”
Urrutia, who declared himself the winner of the July 28 presidential election despite the electoral authorities saying that “the Attorney General of the Republic has acted several times as a political defendant, has condemned in advance and is now summoning without guarantees of the independence of justice.” President Nicolás Maduro is the winner, he declared in a video posted on social networks.
Furthermore, González Urrutia did not specify whether he would bring the summons to the Attorney General's Office or not.
Machado: 'The fight is not over yet'
“We Venezuelans achieved a great victory on July 28, when we mobilized our forces overwhelmingly to win the presidential election. Thanks to the civil organization of hundreds of thousands of volunteers, we defeated the tyrant by his own rules. The evidence of our victory is available to the Venezuelan people. The whole world.”
This is confirmed by the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, against Nicolás Maduro, from the pages of Republica, after the elections held last July that would have declared the unrecognized winner of Edmundo González Irutia. In fact, according to Machado, “the fight is not over yet” because “tyranny does not recognize its defeat”.
“They resort to corrupt courts and punish people who have expressed their clear civil disapproval. In just four weeks, 25 people have been killed, thousands arrested and hundreds tortured,” he continues. “None of them are criminals; none of them could have done that.” Maduro and his cronies want to buy time for the world to forget their defeat.
“They think that the great victory of Edmundo González can be ignored and that Venezuelans will resign themselves to living in captivity. But they are wrong,” he adds. “In Venezuela, after years of trial and error, hardship and mass displacement, a powerful citizen movement has emerged that has united the country against tyranny.” “The regime of Nicolás Maduro fails to understand what is happening. It failed to anticipate the impact of the primaries, nor to prevent its final defeat in the presidential elections,” he concludes. “Tyrants disintegrate when they end up believing their own lies; the majority triumphs when they discover the liberating power of truth, tolerance and love.”
Madrid: We will not recognize numbers that no one knows where they came from
Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares confirmed that Madrid will not recognize the re-election of Nicolás Maduro as president “until the ballot papers for all seats appear and can be verified by the opposition and independent bodies.”
The minister avoided defining Caracas as a regime and reiterated that Madrid wants to maintain its role as a “bridge” between the latter and the opposition. He did not rule out the European Union's proposal to impose new sanctions on Venezuela if Maduro insists on not publishing the election results.
“There will be no recognition without the cards, we will not recognize numbers that no one knows where they came from and even less so when the first moments’ doubts begin to be something more than just doubts,” after the publication of reports by verification bodies such as the Carter Institute or the UN Electoral Commission.
Beijing: Venezuelan people are capable of managing their internal affairs
Regarding the recent elections in Venezuela and the disputed confirmation of Nicolas Maduro as president, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian stated that “all parties should respect the choice of the Venezuelan people.”
Lin added at the daily press conference that Beijing believes that “the Venezuelan government and people are capable of managing their internal affairs.”
The ninth reporter arrested since the beginning of the repression
The Venezuelan Press Workers' Union (SNTP) denounces the arrest of another journalist, Carmela Longo, who was taken away yesterday by the police with her son, as seen in a video posted on the union's social networks. For several hours, nothing was heard from the reporter and her son. It emerged at night that the young man had been released after being interrogated at the Mariperez Investigation Directorate headquarters in Caracas.
Instead, the reporter was detained and is expected to appear in court today on charges of “inciting hatred and terrorism,” like most journalists who have ended up in the crosshairs of Chavista repression.
Longo’s arrest is the ninth media worker detained since Venezuela’s July 28 elections. Four others were jailed before the vote, according to figures from the journalists’ union. On August 20, the woman was fired from the pro-government newspaper Ultimas Noticias. In recent weeks, Venezuela has seen a wave of forced dismissals and resignations from state media and other public companies of people deemed not to be politically aligned with the government of Nicolás Maduro.
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