FILE - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, right, stands with Colombian President Gustavo Petro after Petro arrived at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday called on his close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, to release detailed vote counts of the weekend election in which electoral authorities declared him the winner.
Petro’s comments followed harsh criticism from the international community of Maduro and his ruling party-loyal National Electoral Council, which is yet to release any polling center-level results as it has done in previous elections.
Maduro’s closest challenger, Edmundo Gonzalez, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said the release of those figures would show the president lost the election.
The Carter Center, an independent U.S.-based institution that evaluates elections, said late Tuesday it was unable to verify the results of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, blaming authorities for a “complete lack of transparency” in declaring Maduro the winner without providing any individual polling tallies.
The group was authorized earlier this year by Venezuela’s electoral authorities to send experts to observe the election. It had 17 experts spread out in four cities on Sunday.
“The electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles,” the Carter Center said, adding that the election did not meet international standards and “cannot be considered democratic.”
