Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia shows his ballot as he casts his vote in Caracas in the July 2024 presidential election – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Andrew Harnik
Andrea TOSTA
The Venezuelan public prosecutor summoned opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia for questioning on Monday. The summons is based on a criminal investigation following the controversial presidential election in the country, which dictator Nicolás Maduro has claimed responsibility for.
“Citizen Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia” will be “summoned for questioning on August 26 at 10 a.m.,” prosecutors said on Saturday. The summons is part of an investigation into the opposition’s publication of electoral documents, which they say show that Maduro was clearly defeated.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a Maduro ally, had hinted at the summons on Friday and said Gonzalez Urrutia must explain his “disobedience.”
Saab said the opposition website, on which it published a detailed breakdown of the election results, had “usurped” the powers of the CNE electoral council, which is close to Maduro.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was defiant and called on Venezuelans to take to the streets again on Wednesday in a post on X.
“One month after our glorious victory that elected Edmundo Gonzalez president, Venezuelans are taking to the streets again,” she said, urging her supporters to come “with their families, with their children, with their grandchildren and with their electoral results in hand.”
The CNE declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election with 52 percent of the vote, but refused to publish detailed results, arguing that hackers had manipulated the data.
An observer mission from the US Carter Center said there was no evidence of a cyberattack.
Polling station-level results released by the opposition show that Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat, defeated Maduro with 67 percent of the vote.
Maduro called for the arrest of González Urrutia, who has not been seen in public since marching with Machado on July 30.
Machado, who is not allowed to take part in the election, has also gone into hiding. She has called on Maduro to enter into transition negotiations, which he has firmly refused to do.
On Saturday, she said in a television interview with Fox News that Maduro had unleashed a brutal “terror campaign.”
She promised to “continue fighting, protesting peacefully and increasing pressure at home and abroad until Maduro understands that his best option is to accept the terms of negotiations that would lead us to a transition to democracy.”
– Supreme Court ruling –
Venezuela’s Supreme Court, widely seen as loyal to Maduro, confirmed his re-election for a third six-year term on Thursday and reprimanded Gonzalez Urrutia for failing to appear as ordered.
The opposition candidate refused to attend the hearings, arguing that doing so would endanger his freedom.
Protests following the controversial vote left 27 people dead, including two military personnel, and nearly 200 injured.
In addition, more than 2,400 people were arrested during the elections, including some high-ranking opposition members.
The United States, the European Union, several Latin American countries and multilateral bodies refused to recognize Maduro’s claim of victory without seeing the exact result.
Mexico, Brazil and Colombia are pushing ahead with negotiations to find a way out of the Venezuelan crisis.
The leaders of Brazil and Colombia issued a joint statement on Saturday reiterating their call for the CNE to publish detailed election results, while saying they “take note” of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
“Both presidents remain convinced that the credibility of the electoral process can only be restored through the transparent publication of disaggregated and verifiable data,” the statement said.
Leading EU diplomat Josep Borrell reiterated on Saturday that the CNE was the Venezuelan “legally and constitutionally responsible body” for publishing the results.
“Only complete and independently verifiable results will be accepted and recognized to ensure that the will of the Venezuelan people is respected,” he said in a statement.
“The Venezuelan people must decide their own destiny. Their will must prevail.”
