Chile Blasts Venezuela Over Rights Abuses and Electoral ‘Fraud’
(Bloomberg) -- Chilean President Gabriel Boric accused Nicolas Maduro of trying to steal Venezuela’s election and said his administration is violating human rights, ratcheting up global criticism of last month’s contested vote.
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“I have no doubt that Maduro’s regime has tried to commit fraud,” Boric told reporters Wednesday at the presidential palace in Santiago. “If not, then they would have shown the voting records. Why haven’t they done so? If they had clearly won, then they would have shown the records.”
Maduro’s administration is now committing “serious” human rights violations by oppressing protesters, Boric added. Chile’s government neither trusts the independence nor the impartiality of Venezuelan institutions, he said.
“Chile doesn’t recognize Maduro’s self-proclaimed triumph,” Boric said. “We won’t validate results that haven’t been verified by international organizations that are independent from the regime.”
Since taking office in 2022, Boric has spoken out against international human rights violations from Gaza to Ukraine and Nicaragua. He was one of the first heads of state to question the outcome of Venezuela’s election, saying shortly after the initial results were released that the Maduro victory was “hard to believe.”
The US said last week that Maduro’s opposition rival, Edmundo Gonzalez, clearly won the most votes and called for a peaceful transition of power. Regional heavyweights Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, meanwhile, are refraining from taking sides until a thorough accounting of the vote is released.
Boric met with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a previously-scheduled state visit this week, with both leaders only briefly referring to Venezuela in public. Lula is coordinating with his Mexican and Colombian counterparts on potential calls with both Maduro and Gonzalez, according to Brazilian officials familiar with the matter.
Venezuela’s regime-controlled electoral authority says Maduro won 52% of the vote, but it has yet to release detailed results. The opposition has published records from about 80% of voting stations that suggest Gonzalez secured at least 70% support, sparking nationwide protests.
Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela since the death of his mentor Hugo Chavez 11 years ago, has threatened to jail Gonzalez and banned opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for fomenting dissent and alleged electoral meddling.
The government said Monday it had arrested at least 2,200 protesters, with Maduro promising to send them to maximum-security prisons for 30 years — the same sentence doled out to murderers. Human-rights organizations, whose tally of detentions is lower, say 24 people have been killed by the regime since the election. The news media is also being targeted, with 7 local reporters being locked up and 14 other media workers deported, according to Venezuela’s journalists union.
Separately Wednesday, Gonzalez declined to appear before the Supreme Tribunal of Justice in Caracas. The regime-controlled top court is conducting an audit of the results and Maduro’s accusations that it was the opposition that attempted to rig the vote. Gonzalez, in a post on X, cited concerns about both the legality of the proceedings as well as his own safety in explaining his decision not to attend.
Attending the hearing, he said, would “put at risk not only my freedom but, more importantly, the will of the Venezuelan people expressed on July 28.”
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