As protests continue in Venezuela over Nicolás Maduro’s victory in the July 28 presidential election, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday (August 19) that the country could plunge into a “serious crisis” if authorities refuse to publish the ballot records.
“If [Nicolás] Maduro insists on saying he won and does not want to understand that, for the international community, without verification, we cannot assume results, Venezuela could enter a serious crisis – we are all trying to avoid it,” Josep Borrell said on Monday.
Three weeks ago, Venezuela’s incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, and opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia both claimed victory after the July 28 election.
While the opposition denounces electoral fraud, most foreign governments, as well as the European Union (EU), have demanded that Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) publish the exact count of the ballots and the minutes of the polling stations.
Josep Borrell described as a “clear” negative signal the fact that Nicolás Maduro “refuses to show the lists”. “He should have done it already, he had time,” added the High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security of the EU.
“If there is no verification of the results, they cannot be accepted,” he added.
So far, no Western country has decided on retaliatory measures against Nicolás Maduro. The EU is also not expected to take concrete sanctions, but the topic will probably be on the agenda of the next meeting of foreign ministers, which will take place in Brussels next week.
Josep Borrell also commented on the harsh criticism levelled at him earlier this month by Nicolás Maduro, who had said that the head of European diplomacy was a “disgrace” to the EU and the world.
“Josep Borrell is a disgrace who led Ukraine to war and who is now washing his hands of it, [and] who remains silent in the face of the massacre in Gaza,” Nicolás Maduro had said.
“I know that [Nicolás] Maduro dedicated very tender words to me. This is not the first time, but I have to insist on the same thing. If the results cannot be verified, they cannot be accepted, and at the moment, they are not verifiable,” commented Josep Borrell.
He also noted that the Venezuelan opposition had managed to collect “80% or more” of the polling station reports, which paint a picture “radically different from what [Nicolás] Maduro claims.”
The head of European diplomacy described as “the height of irony” the fact that the outgoing president appealed to the Supreme Court of Venezuela to “defend him.”
“I don’t know what sentence it [the Supreme Court] will hand down, because its function is not to count the electoral results,” said Josep Borrell.
The Spanish-born politician urged the population to wait and see what happens in the coming days, recalling that more than 2,000 people have been arrested since the election and that “repression is increasing” in the country.
He also expressed confidence that the international community will maintain its pressure against the Nicolás Maduro regime.
This article is originally published on euractiv.fr
