WILLIHERME BOTACINI
A member of the electoral technical team of the Venezuelan opposition, Gustavo Silva is in Brasília this Tuesday (26) to meet with senators and deputies, on a pilgrimage that has already passed through Chile and Argentina and should continue on to other countries in the coming days.
Silva also participates in a press conference alongside Senator Tereza Cristina (PP-MS) in the Senate, and will remain in the federal capital until this Wednesday (27). He did not confirm whether he will meet with members of the Executive.
“At a time when democracy is at risk, fragile across the entire continent, letting the Venezuela page pass is not an option,” he says to the reporter.
In possession of samples of electoral records gathered by the opposition and a report that, according to him, explains why around 85% of the documents justify Edmundo González’s victory in the presidential election, which took place in July, Silva seeks support from countries, mainly Latin -Americans, to recognize González as the country’s elected president instead of Nicolás Maduro.
The recognition was made official by the G7 – a group that brings together Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom – this Tuesday (26). The Caracas regime threatened to break diplomatic relations with the countries in question, calling the move an attempt by the “colonialist and imperialist complex” to “prepare the ground for not recognizing the institutions and decisions of the Venezuelan people.”
Maduro declared himself victorious days after the election, although the opposition says, based on the minutes gathered, that González is the one who should take over on January 10, the day the new leader takes office. In an interview with the press in Spain, where he lives in exile, González stated that he is “morally prepared” for eventual arrest when he returns to Caracas to try to take up the position.
“I simply come to share transparency. There are people who still say that the situation in Venezuela is not clear because the result was not clear. The UN panel of experts says that the result released by the Electoral Council in Venezuela was oral and without technical support”, says Silva.
“We have a result that is not from María Corina Machado or Edmundo González, it is the result of the Electoral Council, which is recorded in the minutes we received and we are sharing it with everyone”, he adds.
The publication of the rest of the minutes by the Maduro regime is the main demand of the opposition and other countries in the region and beyond – from the United States, which recognizes González as elected president, to Brazil, which does not recognize either González or Maduro as winners of the election . The dictatorship has not yet made this announcement.
“The remaining 15% [das atas] that we did not have access was because the government ordered the military and electoral officials not to hand over the documents to us”, says Silva.
In Venezuela, witnesses registered with the National Electoral Council (CNE) monitor the voting in polling stations and have access to the minutes of those sections after the polls close – bulletins are generated that are held by the State and others, similar, are held by the witnesses. These are the documents that the opposition claims to have and that represent 85% of the country’s total minutes.
In a technical report that Silva presents to parliamentarians this Tuesday, the samples and voting estimates presented from 85% of the minutes indicate that, even if Maduro received 100% of the votes in the remaining 15%, he would not reach the votes that González received from according to the documents held by the opposition – hence the defense that the opponent is the winner of the election even without full disclosure.
“Edmundo González won in all demographics of the country, not just in all states. In municipalities with extreme poverty, González won, in rural areas, he won in most urban areas, in areas with moderate poverty he also won. It’s a transversal asset”, he states.
Silva thanked Brazil for being “on the side of democracy”, also mentioning part of María Corina Machado’s team taking refuge in the Argentine embassy in Caracas, which is under the care of the Brazilian government.
On Monday night, Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli, one of the asylum seekers at the embassy, published on his account on X that the embassy’s electricity had been turned off again and that security agents maintained what he called harassment outside the place.
On Saturday (23), the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced “acts of harassment and intimidation” against its embassy and demanded that Venezuela issue “the necessary safe passage” so that opponents taking refuge in the diplomatic headquarters can leave the country.
The Minister of the Interior, Diosdado Cabello, denies the siege of the Argentine embassy in Caracas.
