EFE (via 14ymedio), Caracas, 29 July 2024 — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado urged the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) to “respect the popular sovereignty” expressed in Sunday’s presidential elections, insisting that the candidate of the largest anti-Chávez bloc, Edmundo González Urrutia, won, and not President Nicolás Maduro, as announced by the electoral body.
In the opinion of the former deputy, the announcement of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which gave the victory to Maduro with 51.2 % of the votes, “was impossible”, since, according to more than 40 % of the reports they have received, González Urrutia obtained 70 %, while the head of State – said Machado – obtained 30 %.
For his part, the presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, claimed that “all the rules have been violated” during the process.
“Venezuelans and the whole world know what happened in today’s election; here all the rules have been violated, to the extent that most of the minutes have not yet been delivered,” said the former ambassador.
The diplomat emphasised that his message and that of the coalition, the United Democratic Platform (PUD), still holds, that “reconciliation and change in peace” is still valid, and he said that they are “convinced that the great majority of Venezuelans also aspire to it”.
“Our struggle continues and we will not rest until the will of the people of Venezuela is respected,” he added.
Meanwhile, Maduro, in power since 2013, called for “respect for the will of the people” after being proclaimed re-elected president.
For his part, the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, said that the country is preparing to begin “a new stage” following the elections.
To ensure the security of the process, more than 388,000 members of the FANB and the different State security forces were deployed in the country, which is also maintaining a temporary “closure” “of cross-border movements, as well as the passage of vehicles through the land accesses with neighboring countries, Colombia and Brazil.
Translated by GH
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