QUITO.- He President of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, This Monday he proposed a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) to treat the “delicate situation” in Venezuelaafter the elections in which Nicolas Maduro He was declared the winner on Sunday, in a controversial process in which the sending of voting records was halted, opposition members were prohibited from entering the National Electoral Council, and armed groups were violently present.
“I have asked our foreign minister (Gabriela Sommerfeld) to take the necessary steps to convene the Permanent Council of the OAS to discuss the delicate situation in Venezuela,” Noboa wrote on the social network X.
Maduro, in power since 2013, was declared the winner by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) (the pro-government institution) with an alleged 5.15 million votes (51.2%) after the alleged counting of 80% of the votes.
With this, the dictator seeks to serve a third consecutive six-year term. According to the CNE, opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia received 4.45 million votes (44.2%). The projections of the exit polls gave totally different results.
“Across the region, there are politicians who are trying to cling to power and who are trying to rob our citizens of peace. “That is what we are facing, that is the danger of the dictatorship, and today we are witnessing how one more of them is trying to rob millions of Venezuelans of their hope,” added the Ecuadorian president.
Earlier, the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry rejected the “lack of transparency” in Venezuela’s electionswhere the opposition claims fraud. He added that the “absence of guarantees” in the publication of information “delegitimises and vitiates” the results.
The announcement of Maduro’s alleged re-election, who is expected to remain in the presidency for 18 years, was also questioned by the United States, Chile, Peru, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Argentina, Spain, Uruguay and the European Union. While China, Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras and Bolivia congratulated the Venezuelan leader.
“This is serious, the will of a people, of any country, must be respected,” said Chancellor Sommerfeld in an interview with Teleamazonas on Monday.
He said he invited several countries to join Ecuador’s request to convene the OAS meeting. “It is the will of several nations that will give strength to any resolution” of the organization, he added.
The minister insisted that the countries of the region are called to monitor what is happening in Venezuela so that “the votes are transmitted and counted in an open and transparent manner.”
On Monday, several leaders from Central and South America have come out against the election results in Venezuela.
One of the most critical voices is that of Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who believes that the results in Venezuela “are difficult to believe” and warned that his government will not recognize “any result that is not verifiable.”
“The Maduro regime must understand that the results it publishes are difficult to believe. 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 beholden to the government account for the veracity of the results. In Chile, we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable,” he said.
Source: With information from AFP / Europa Press