Venezuela election: Opposition rejects Brazil’s call to redo disputed vote

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Thursday rejected a proposal from Brazil’s president that Venezuela hold a new presidential election following the contested results of last month’s vote.

Her comments came shortly after Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said that he still doesn’t recognize Nicolás Maduro as the winner of last month’s presidential election in Venezuela, and that his counterpart could call for a new vote “if he has good sense.”

He also said that Maduro still owes an explanation to Brazilians and the rest of the world.

Machado said during a virtual press conference with Argentine media that redoing the election would be “an insult” to the people, and she asked if second election were held and Maduro still didn’t accept the results, “do we go for a third one?”

Brazil is by far South America’s largest nation and shares one of Venezuela’s longest land borders. Unlike many other nations that have either recognized Maduro or González as the winner, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have taken a more neutral stance by neither rejecting nor accepting it when Venezuela’s electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner at the ballot box.“Maduro still has six months left in his term. He is the president regardless of the election. If he has good sense, he could call upon the people of Venezuela, perhaps even call for new elections, create an electoral committee and allow observers from around the world to monitor,” Lula said in an interview with Radio T.

In a joint statement, the three countries called on Venezuela’s electoral body to release tens of thousands of vote tally sheets, considered the ultimate proof of results.

Under Lula, the country has been an important mediator, including the Barbados Agreement reached in October, when Maduro’s administration and political opposition reached an agreement on a new election that triggered relief from U.S. sanctions.

Celso Amorim, Lula’s closest international adviser and former foreign relations minister, went to Caracas in July to monitor the election. Speaking to a Senate committee Thursday morning, Amorim said that a new election would need to be verified in a solid and robust manner.

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