A week after the Venezuelan electoral council declared the country’s strongman, Nicolas Maduro, the winner of the presidential elections— with a vote tally that the opposition movement showed to be fraudulent— the U.S. is still withholding recognition of the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, as president-elect despite acknowledging that he did, in fact, win the elections.
In a call with reporters Tuesday, a senior State Department official did not say why. But his answers signaled that the reluctance to officially recognize Gonzalez as president-elect was linked to the possibility of negotiations between Maduro and the opposition facilitated by Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.
Mark Wells, the acting assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere, said the U.S. is supporting diplomatic efforts by those three countries “that are pushing for a return of democracy to Venezuela.”
“We are now focused solely on getting the parties to talk and be part of a peaceful transition,” Wells said. “This requires dialogue. The United States has offered our participation and support for any dialogue that the parties decide upon.”
Wells said he could not “confirm or deny” that the Biden administration is currently negotiating with Maduro, as it did in Qatar last year. The two countries reached a secret deal at the time to allow the opposition to compete in the presidential elections in exchange for the U.S. lifting sanctions on Venezuela. Maduro later violated several conditions in the agreement, and the Biden administration re-imposed some, though not all, of the sanctions it had suspended.
“It is public knowledge that we have had dialogue with Maduro’s representatives in the past. I am not going to go into how these discussions will be at this time, nor am I going to mention…specific people in this dialogue,” Wells added.
He also declined to say whether the administration is considering lifting the $15 million bounty U.S. law enforcement is offering for information leading to Maduro’s arrest as an incentive to potential negotiations. The Venezuelan leader is wanted in the U.S. on charges of drug trafficking.
Wells said the U.S. government had reviewed the paper tallies of the election published by the opposition, verifying 80 percent of the votes, and concluded that such evidence would be “almost impossible to falsify.”
“These data, analyzed and accepted by independent entities, show that Gonzalez received at least 66% of the votes,” he said. “The results of the elections are clear.”
What has been less clear is the U.S. response.
Initially, U.S. officials said they were “withholding judgment” until the government-controlled Venezuelan electoral council released the vote details, which it has not done. But in a meeting of the Organization of American States last week, Assistant Secretary of State Brian Nichols, the U.S. top diplomat for Latin America, said for the first time that Gonzalez had beat Maduro by millions of votes. He urged governments to quickly “acknowledge Edmundo González’s overwhelming electoral victory” or else risk “enabling Maduro and his representatives to attempt a massive fraud and disregard for the rule of law and democratic principles.”
A day later, on Thursday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged Gonzalez had won “the most votes” in the presidential election but did not officially recognize him as president-elect, nor did he do it in a call with Gonzalez and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado the following day.
On Monday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the administration was not yet ready to recognize Gonzalez as president-elect.
“That’s not a step that we are taking today,” he said. “We are in close contact with our partners in the region – especially with Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia – about a path forward. We continue to urge the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a peaceful transition back to democratic norms.”
But in Venezuela, there are no signs that Maduro is listening to calls for a peaceful transition.
His forces have unleashed a crackdown on protesters and opposition leaders that has left at least 16 people dead. Maduro said security forces had arrested 2,000 people in the week following the election.
On Monday his ally, the country’s attorney general Tarek Saab, said his office is opening a criminal investigation against Gonzalez and Machado after they posted a letter on X urging the Venezuelan military and security forces to refrain from violence and to “stand by the people… and make the results be respected.”
“We won this election without any dispute,” they said in the letter.
But on Tuesday, after emerging from hiding to lead a massive rally in Caracas during the weekend, Machado sent a cryptic message calling for “an operational pause” and preparing the opposition’s supporters for a new phase to defend the vote.
“Edmundo Gonzalez is the president-elect of Venezuela,” she said audio published on X. “Nobody said this would be easy, but let the world be very clear: There is no turning back. This is irreversible and will continue until the end.”
This story was originally published August 07, 2024 5:30 AM.