CARACAS, Venezuela, and BOGOTÁ, Colombia — For a second straight day Venezuelans poured into the streets to protest what increasingly appears to be a stolen presidential election, but the defense minister pledged to crackdown on dissent and vowed loyalty to authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.
Addressing a huge outdoor rally in Caracas, opposition leader María Corina Machado said her movement had obtained 84% of the voter tally sheets from Sunday’s balloting which showed that retired diplomat Edmundo González had won in a landslide. González, she said, had received more than 7 million votes compared to 3.2 million for Maduro.
“This is irrefutable proof that we won,” said Machado, who was replaced on Sunday’s ballot by González after she was banned from running by the Maduro regime. “We not only won. We destroyed them.”
On Monday, the National Electoral Council declared that Maduro had won a third term, beating González by a 51% to 44% margin. However, the electoral council — which like most government institutions is controlled by the ruling Socialist Party — has declined to release any detailed ballot information to back up its numbers. Preelection polls as well as election-day quick counts and exit surveys showed González with a huge lead.
As a result, allegations of fraud are multiplying and Venezuelans as well as foreign governments are calling on Maduro to release the official tally sheets from the more than 30,000 voting machines. Celso Amorim, an envoy for the leftwing government of Brazil, met with Maduro Monday and said the strongman had promised to release official data on the election.
“He said this would happen in a short period of time, from what I understood,” Amorim told the Financial Times.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke with President Biden on Tuesday. Both agreed that the Venezuelan electoral authorities needed to release the polling data. According to a White House statement, they also agreed that the outcome of the Venezuelan election “represents a critical moment for democracy in the hemisphere.”
In the meantime, the Organization of American States issued a scathing report saying Maduro’s claims of victory “deserve neither to be trusted nor to be democratically recognized.”
“Nicolás Maduro’s regime has once again betrayed the Venezuelan people by promising to respect popular will when, at the same time, doing everything possible to manipulate and ignore that will,” the report said.
On Tuesday, the opposition urged Venezuela’s armed forces, which are key to propping up Maduro, to break with him. Maduro has led Venezuela into its worst economic meltdown in history and has nearly destroyed the country’s democracy during his 11 years in power, a crisis that has also impacted military families. Soldiers have the right to vote and many are thought to have cast ballots for González.
Referring to the massive turnout in Sunday’s voting, Machado said in her speech: “Soldiers saw with their own eyes the country’s triumph over tyranny.”
González added: “We insist that our armed forces respect the will of the people… You know what happened on Sunday.”
But in a televised speech, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said it was time for Venezuelans to rally behind the homeland and the government. Wearing an olive-green uniform and field cap and standing before rows of military officers, he said: “We confirm our absolute loyalty and unconditional support for President Nicolás Maduro, our legitimately elected commander in chief.”
Padrino López called the protesters coup-plotters allied with foreign enemies of Venezuela and warned: “We will take forceful action… to maintain internal order.”
Maduro himself made similar threats on Tuesday. "I hold you, González, responsible for everything that is happening in Venezuela: the criminal violence, the delinquents, the injuries, the deaths and the destruction. You are directly responsible as are you Machado, and there has to be justice. Because these things, this attack on the people, must not happen again in Venezuela."
By Tuesday evening Maduro took to the balcony of the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas to address his supporters. But the past two days have been dominated by protests against the official results.
The demonstrations began Monday with people marching on government buildings, ripping down billboards with Maduro’s image and destroying at least five statues of his mentor, the late Hugo Chávez who founded Venezuela’s socialist revolution 25 years ago.
Six people were killed in clashes with security forces who arrested 132 protesters, said Alfredo Romero, president of the Caracas human rights group Foro Penal. Among the detainees was Freddy Superlano, a former state governor and opposition leader.
Ryan C. Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Maduro is trying to run out the clock. He predicted the president will try to “cement the facts on the ground” as he waits for anti-government demonstrations and international outrage to fade.
Transcript
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
For a second day, Venezuelans have taken to the streets to protest Sunday's contested election results. President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in the election and is now insisting that opponents and foreign governments are trying to oust him from power. The opposition says they won the election by a landslide. Many are demanding that Maduro show proof of his claimed victory, including officials in the U.S. and others in the international community. NPR's Carrie Kahn is in the capitol, Caracas, and joins us now. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Hi.
CHANG: OK, so I know you've been out on the streets with these protesters. What are people telling you?
KAHN: I'm just back from a huge march, Ailsa. It filled multiple blocks of one of Caracas' largest boulevards. It was packed with opponents of Nicolas Maduro. Many were draped in the Venezuelan flag. They sang the national anthem. Some were weeping, others holding signs that read, don't mess with my vote. We want peace, not a dictator. And there was much, much support for leading opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado. She has galvanized and united the opposition here, unlike in recent years. And I'm going to play you a bit of one protester, Geraldine Cico (ph), who says this fight feels different.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GERALDINE CICO: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: She said, "this time, the opposition has the proof that the election was stolen and shows that the majority of voters voted for change." And when she's talking about proof, she's talking about paper readouts from each polling station in the country. Every single precinct prints out the totals of the votes, and the government has refused to make those public. But the opposition says they have the printouts for more than 80% of the precincts, and it shows that their candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won by more than 70% nationwide.
Maria Corina Machado was barred from the race, and Gonzalez is in her place. And the two showed up at this massive rally, and the crowd just went wild. People started handing them printouts from several precincts that they had, and Machado told the crowd that the truth will prevail and urged them to keep firm and to keep peacefully fighting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting in Spanish).
KAHN: I just wanted to play you that part because they were responding to her when she said that, and they said, "we are not afraid. We are not afraid."
CHANG: We are not afraid. Well, what has been the government response to all of this growing unrest and anger?
KAHN: There have been clashes with security forces in many places throughout the country. The attorney general says hundreds have been arrested. There are reports of some death. For his part, Maduro says, these protests are the work of fascist criminals trying to oust him from power. His defense minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, came on national TV today and said the same and pledged allegiance to Maduro.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VLADMIMIR PADRINO LOPEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: He pledged his absolute loyalty and unconditional support for Maduro, which has been a big question post-election about what the armed forces would do and would they back the government. And that was clearly answered today.
CHANG: Well, real quick, Carrie, how are the U.S. and other regional governments responding at this point?
KAHN: The U.S. continues to urge Maduro to release all of the election data and to be transparent. He, of course, hasn't. And the actual website of the electoral council has been down for days.
CHANG: That is NPR's Carrie Kahn in Caracas. Thank you, Carrie.
KAHN: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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