Colombian President Gustavo Petro urged his close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to release detailed vote counts from the weekend election, where Maduro was declared the winner by electoral authorities.
Petro's call came after international criticism targeted Maduro and his party-loyal National Electoral Council for not releasing polling center-level results, as has been customary in previous elections. Maduro's main opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed that the detailed figures would reveal Maduro's defeat.
Petro expressed concerns on social media, stating that the lack of transparency in the Venezuelan electoral process could lead to severe polarization and division within the country. He appealed to the Venezuelan government to ensure a peaceful conclusion to the election by allowing a transparent vote count supervised by all political forces and international observers.
Petro also suggested that Maduro's government and the opposition reach an agreement to respect the political force that lost the election, proposing that such an agreement be submitted to the United Nations Security Council.
The Carter Center, an independent U.S.-based institution that monitors elections, reported it could not verify the results of Venezuela's presidential election, citing a “complete lack of transparency” in the declaration of Maduro's victory without providing polling station tallies.
Authorized to observe the election, the Carter Center deployed 17 experts across four cities but criticized the electoral authority's failure to release disaggregated results, deeming it a serious breach of electoral principles. The Center concluded that the election did not meet international standards and could not be considered democratic.
