QCOSTARICA — Sadness and frustration were the feelings that reigned in front of the Venezuelan Embassy in San José, Costa Rica after the electoral authority of Venezuela announced the reelection of Nicolás Maduro.
Venezuelans in Costa Rica showed their discontent on Sunday night after learning the results of the presidential elections.
The Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), the Venezuelan electoral authority, attributed 51.2% of the votes to Maduro, compared to the 44.2% obtained by Edmundo González, with 80% of the votes counted, announced six hours after the official closing of the polling stations.
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However, the opposition rejected the result and declared it an “outrage against the truth.”
“The people of Venezuela were very clear. The victory was resounding with Edmundo. We must review the votes again to check and reach the results that we deserve,” was the common thread among the Venezuelans in San José.
The international community, including the United States and Costa Rica, question the official results.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
“It is critical that every vote is counted fairly and transparently, that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay, and that election authorities publish a tabulation of the votes,” Blinken said from Tokyo, adding that “the international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.”
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Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves said in a statement that his government “categorically repudiates the proclamation of Nicolás Maduro as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which we consider fraudulent.”
“We will work with the democratic governments of the continent and international organizations to ensure that the sacred will of the Venezuelan people is respected,” Chaves added.
While Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday congratulated Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on his “new victory” in Sunday’s presidential election.
Putin, who highlighted the “strategic partnership” of Russian-Venezuelan relations and said he was confident that Maduro “will continue to contribute to their progressive development in all areas… Remember that you will always be welcome on Russian soil,” the Russian leader said, according to the Kremlin.
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Russia and Venezuela maintain close relations and Maduro has referred to Putin as “his older brother.”
Nicolás Maduro also received congratulations from countries such as China, and Iran for his victory.
“China is willing to enrich our strategic partnership and further benefit the peoples of both countries,” Lin Jian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at a briefing, according to AFP.
Tehran also congratulated Venezuela for its “successful” presidential elections “despite some cruel and unfair threats and sanctions imposed” on the country, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said in a message on X.
However, many others question the results.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric was the first foreign leader to publicly express doubts about the numbers released by the CNE.
“The Maduro regime must understand that the results it publishes are difficult to believe,” said Boric, who is a leftist and critical of his Venezuelan counterpart, on his X account (formerly Twitter).
“The international community and above all the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency of the minutes and the process, and that international observers not compromised with the government account for the veracity of the results,” he added.
The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, stated on the same social network that the process up to the day of the election and the day of the vote count “was clearly flawed” and that “you cannot recognize a victory if you do not trust the way and the mechanisms used to achieve it.”
According to Pou, who began his message with an expressive “Not like that!”, Nicolás Maduro’s victory was “an open secret. They were going to ‘win’ regardless of the real results.”
From Colombia, whose government is close to Venezuela, Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo asked for “the total counting of the votes, their verification and independent audit,” he posted on X.
The Colombian Foreign Minister said that the international community and the Venezuelan people “expect that transparency and electoral guarantees for all sectors prevail,” and that it is important to clear up any doubts about the results, which implies “that international observers and monitors present their conclusions about the process.”
Tras mantener contactos permanentes con todos los actores políticos involucrados en los comicios presidenciales que tuvieron lugar en la República Bolivariana de Venezuela y luego de conocer los resultados preliminares comunicados por el Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE),…
— Luis Gilberto Murillo (@LuisGMurillo) July 29, 2024
Peru’s foreign minister, Javier González-Olaechea, condemned “in all its extremes the sum of irregularities with the intention of fraud by the Venezuelan government.”
“Peru will not accept the violation of the popular will of the Venezuelan people,” said the foreign minister through X and announced the call for consultations of the ambassador of Lima in Caracas.
The European Union, through its High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, stated that “the Venezuelan people voted on the future of their country in a peaceful and massive way. Their will must be respected,” he wrote on the social network X.
Borrel also pointed out that “it is vital to ensure the full transparency of the electoral process, including the detailed counting of votes and access to the voting records of polling stations.”
The Spanish foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, has also asked for transparency.
“The Venezuelans voted yesterday democratically in a very large majority,” Albares said to the Cadena Ser radio station. “We want total transparency and that is why we ask for the publication of the minutes of the table by table,” said the minister, who added that the Spanish government does not have a candidate and that he hopes to have “clearer and more democratic information” throughout the day.
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