7 EU countries press Venezuela to release voting records of contested election

Paris: The leaders of seven EU countries on Sunday exhorted Venezuelan authorities to publish detailed voting results of last Sunday’s presidential election whose declared results granting incumbent President Nicolás Maduro the win are rejected by the opposition.

“We call on Venezuelan authorities to release promptly all the tally sheets in order to guarantee the full transparency and integrity of the electoral process,” reads a joint statement sent to journalists by the Elysée Palace late Saturday.

The statement was signed by French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro.

The European leaders “express … great concern” over the political situation in Venezuela, and “strongly condemn any arrests or threats” against Venezuelans, “especially the political leaders.”

Maduro’s declaration of victory was rejected by the opposition, after exit polls had projected a decisive lead for his rival Edmundo González.

The developments have prompted large protests in Caracas, where thousands of protesters gathered earlier this week in a call to overturn the presidential elections’ results. The authorities have arrested hundreds of protesters, and threatened to imprison González as well as opposition leader María Corina Machado.

Shortly after the election results came out last Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

The EU has struggled to present a united response to the political crisis in Venezuela, after Hungary vetoed a statement echoing concerns over the alleged “flaws and irregularities” in the voting, as reported by POLITICO.