Venezuela opposition candidate issued summons over vote dispute

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia shows his ballot as he votes in Caracas during the July 2024 presidential election – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Andrew Harnik

Andrea TOSTA

Venezuelan prosecutors have summoned opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia for questioning Monday as part of a criminal investigation following the country’s disputed presidential election claimed by strongman Nicolas Maduro.

“Citizen Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia” is summoned “on August 26 at 10 am for an interview,” prosecutors said Saturday, as part of an investigation into the opposition’s publishing of electoral records which it claims show Maduro was clearly defeated.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a Maduro ally, had foreshadowed the summoning Friday, saying Gonzalez Urrutia would have to explain his “disobedience.” 

Saab said the opposition’s website, where it has posted a detailed breakdown of election results, had “usurped” the powers of the Maduro-aligned CNE electoral council.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was defiant, calling in a post on X for Venezuelans to take to the streets again on Wednesday.

“One month after our glorious victory, in which Edmundo Gonzalez was elected President, Venezuelans again take to the streets,” she said, calling for supporters to come “with family, with your children, with your grandchildren and with your voting record in hand.”

The CNE declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 election with 52 percent of votes cast, but has refused to publish detailed results, claiming hackers had corrupted the data.

An observer mission from the US-based Carter Center said there was no evidence of a cyber attack.

The polling station-level results published by the opposition show that Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat, defeated Maduro with 67 percent of the vote.

Maduro has called for the arrest of Gonzalez Urrutia, who has not been seen in public since he led a march on July 30 with Machado.

Machado, banned from running in the election, is also in hiding. She has demanded that Maduro enter into transition negotiations, which he has rejected outright.

On Saturday, she said in a televised Fox News interview that Maduro had unleashed a brutal “campaign of terror.”

She pledged to “keep on fighting, peacefully protesting, increasing pressure domestically and internationally, until Maduro understands that his best option is to accept the terms of a negotiation that would bring us to a transition to democracy.”

– Supreme Court ruling –

Venezuela’s top court, widely regarded as loyal to Maduro, on Thursday certified his reelection to a third, six-year term, and reprimanded Gonzalez Urrutia for not appearing as ordered.

The opposition candidate refused to attend the hearings, saying doing so would risk his freedom.

Protests following the disputed vote left 27 people dead, including two military members, and nearly 200 injured.

More than 2,400 people have also been arrested in the wake of the election, including some high-profile opposition members.

The United States, European Union, several Latin American countries and multilateral bodies have refused to recognize Maduro’s victory claim without seeing the detailed results.

Mexico, Brazil and Colombia have been promoting negotiations to find a way out of the Venezuelan crisis.

The leaders of Brazil and Colombia on Saturday issued a joint statement reiterating a call for the CNE to release detailed vote results, while saying they “take note” of the Supreme Court 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.

The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell on Saturday reiterated that the CNE is the Venezuelan “body legally and constitutionally responsible” for publishing 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 have to decide their own destiny. Their will must prevail.”