Venezuela opposition 'clearly' beat Maduro: senior US diplomat
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a press conference to the international media about the presidential election at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, July 31. AFP-Yonhap
The top U.S. diplomat for Latin America said Wednesday that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro had overwhelmingly lost to opponent Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, endorsing vote tallies released by the opposition as Venezuela's electoral authority fails to release detailed results.
Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) has yet to release a detailed vote breakdown to back its awarding of Sunday's election to Maduro, despite calls to do so from the opposition and many nations in the region and elsewhere.
"Why haven't they?" asked U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols in remarks at an Organization of American States (OAS) meeting.
"The answer appears to be clear, either they know the real results prove that Edmundo Gonzalez clearly won the election, so they don't want to share the results — or they know that the real results prove that Edmundo Gonzalez clearly won the election and Maduro's CNE needs time to prepare falsified results to back their false assertion."
The opposition meanwhile has published online tens of thousands of polling result papers, known as "actas."
"These are real Venezuelan votes," Nichols said.
"The tabulation of these detailed results clearly show an irrefutable result: Edmundo Gonzalez won with 67 percent of these votes compared to 30 percent for Maduro.
"While not a total result, there are not enough votes in remaining tally sheets... to overcome such a deficit," he said.
"With the irrefutable evidence based on the actas everyone can see, it is clear that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia defeated Nicolas Maduro by millions of votes."
Maduro, 61, has been at the helm of the once-wealthy oil-rich country since 2013, presiding over a GDP drop of 80 percent that pushed more than 7 million of Venezuela's 30 million citizens to emigrate, many to the United States. (AFP)