The Venezuelan opposition, which saw the election as its best chance in years of defeating the authoritarian socialist, demanded that Maduro hand over scanned printouts of all voting records — more than 30,000 documents — signed and dated by poll workers and opposition observers, and not just the numbers shown on the government webpage.
“The results are undeniable,” González said late Sunday. “The country elected a peaceful change.”
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday. He called on electoral officials to publish the “detailed tabulation” of votes. “The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly,” he said.
The Atlanta-based Carter Center, which sent a technical observation mission to observe Sunday’s vote, called on the electoral council to immediately publish the presidential election results at the polling station level.
Maduro has ruled Venezuela since the death of his mentor Hugo Chávez, founder of the socialist state, in 2013. Many here blame him for the oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of citizens, including hundreds of thousands who have fled to the United States.
Some Latin American countries, including Colombia and Brazil, which have friendly ties to Maduro, joined in the skepticism about the announced results, as did Spain, Italy and other European nations. Brazil said it awaited the publication of precinct-level voting data.
Russia, China, Iran and Cuba were among countries that congratulated Maduro.
Opposition leaders, who organized and trained thousands of ordinary citizens to monitor the vote in anticipation of potential fraud, said records they compiled from nearly 40 percent of the nation’s voting centers proved their victory.
According to their information, opposition leader María Corina Machado said, Maduro’s win was “impossible.”
“We won, and the whole world knows it,” she told reporters early Monday.
In a memo, the opposition campaign declared the vote a “FRAUD” and said the “burden of proof” was on the government.
“Months will go by and they will not be able to deliver it to us. That is what we have to achieve, demanded by us and by the international community,” the memo’s authors wrote.
On Monday, Venezuelan Attorney General Tareck William Saab said the electoral data transmission system suffered an attempted “attack,” and he accused opposition leaders Lester Toledo and Leopoldo López of carrying it out to “manipulate the data.” He also accused Machado of being involved, providing no evidence.
“What has happened in our country is a huge social movement that they will not stop,” said Machado, Venezuela’s most popular politician. “We are a civic peaceful movement, and that’s how we will keep working until we make the truth prevail — and it will prevail.”
In the run-up to the election, Maduro’s government barred Machado from running, arrested campaign workers and denied the opposition access to state media. During voting on Sunday, there were reports of blocked entry, delays and violence at some voting centers.
Maduro’s claim of victory threatened to increase his and Venezuela’s isolation on the world stage. In 2018, Maduro claimed reelection in a vote marred by charges of irregularities, prompting mass protests at home and condemnation abroad.
The United States and other countries ultimately declared Maduro illegitimate and recognized then-National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s rightful leader.
In a statement early Monday, Maduro claimed without evidence that the electoral council had been hacked from an unnamed country, causing a delay in the publication of the full election results. “The demons and the devils did not want the total to be counted,” Maduro said.
Latin American leaders across the political spectrum cast doubt on the results.
Colombia’s foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, called for an independent verification and audit of the vote count “as soon as possible.”
Left-of-center Chilean President Gabriel Boric described the official results as “difficult to believe” and demanded that independent international observers be given access to the full results. “From Chile, we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable,” he wrote on X early Monday.
Celso Amorim, a top foreign policy adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said he was waiting for the electoral council to provide records to support its conclusion. In Caracas for the vote, he said he hopes to reach a “fact-based assessment.”
“I will also not endorse any narrative that there was fraud,” Amorim said in a statement. “It is a complex situation and we want to support the normalization of the Venezuelan political process.”
On the other end of the political spectrum, Argentine President Javier Milei, too, said he would not recognize a “fraud.” “Venezuelans chose to end the communist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro,” he posted on X, and he called on Venezuela’s armed forces to “defend democracy and the popular will.”
Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea accused Maduro’s regime of having the “intention of fraud” and recalled Peru’s ambassador to Venezuela for consultations. “Peru will not accept the violation of the popular will of the Venezuelan people,” he said on X.
Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay also issued calls for a transparent count of the votes by independent observers.
Meanwhile, Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Bolivia and Honduras — all allies of Maduro — congratulated him.
The Russian ambassador to Caracas described the victory as “credible,” and President Vladimir Putin sent his best wishes. “Remember that you are always a welcome guest on Russian soil,” he told Maduro.
China’s Foreign Ministry congratulated Maduro and Venezuela on their “successful” election. “China and Venezuela are good friends and partners who support each other,” Chinese state media quoted ministry spokesman Lin Jian saying at a news conference.
Cuba’s Raúl Castro, the younger brother of the late Fidel Castro and a former premier of the communist island nation himself, called Maduro to congratulate him, Cuba’s foreign ministry said.
Sands reported from London. Christian Shepherd in Taipei, Taiwan, and Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
