Venezuela election news: Colombian president Petro calls for detailed vote counts

CARACAS, Venezuela –

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 Maduro 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 serious doubts that have arisen around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of permanent division,” Petro said in a post on social media site X.

“I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count, with the counting of votes, and with the supervision of all the political forces of its country and professional international supervision,” he added.

Petro also proposed that Maduro’s government and the opposition reach an agreement “that allows for the maximum respect of the (political) force that has lost the elections.” The agreement, he said, could be submitted to the United Nations Security Council.

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.”