The U.S. government on Thursday recognized Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner of the South American country's presidential election, discrediting the results announced by electoral authorities who declared President Nicolás Maduro the victor.
"Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela's July 28 presidential election," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of Sunday's highly anticipated election, but the president's main challenger, González, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado have said they obtained more than two-thirds of the tally sheets that each electronic voting machine printed after polls closed.
They said the release of the data on those tallies would prove Maduro lost.
The announcement from the U.S. government came amid diplomatic efforts to persuade Maduro to release vote tallies from the election and increasing calls for an independent review of the results, according to officials from Brazil and Mexico.
Government officials from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have been in communication with Maduro's administration to persuade him to show the vote tally sheets from Sunday's election and allow impartial verification, a Brazilian government official told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The officials have told Venezuela's government that showing the data is the only way to dispel any doubt about the results, said the Brazilian official, who asked not to be identified because of a lack of authorization to publicly speak about the diplomatic efforts.
A Mexican official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for the same reason, confirmed that the three governments have been discussing the issue with Venezuela but did not provide details.
Earlier, Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he planned to speak with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, and that his government believed it was important that the electoral tallies be made public.
Later Thursday, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico jointly called on Venezuela's electoral authorities "to move forward expeditiously and publicly release" detailed voting data, but they did not confirm any diplomatic efforts to persuade Maduro's government to publish the vote tallies.
On Monday, after the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of the election, thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets. The government said it arrested hundreds of protesters, and Venezuela-based human rights organization Foro Penal said 11 people were killed. Dozens more were arrested the following day, including former opposition candidate Freddy Superlano.
Opposition leader Machado — who was barred from running for president — and González addressed a huge rally of their supporters in the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday, but they have not been seen in public since. Later that day, the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, called for their arrest, calling them criminals and fascists.
In an op-ed published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, Machado said she was "hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen." She reasserted that the opposition had physical evidence that Maduro lost the election and urged the international community to intervene.
"We have voted Mr. Maduro out," she wrote. "Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government."
On Wednesday, Maduro asked Venezuela's highest court to conduct an audit of the election, but that request drew almost immediate criticism from foreign observers who said the court was too close to the government to produce an independent review.
It wasn't clear if Maduro's first concession to demands for more transparency was the result of the discussions with Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Venezuela's president confirmed during a news conference on Wednesday that he had spoken with Petro about it.
On Thursday, the court accepted Maduro's request for an audit and ordered him, González and the eight other candidates who participated in the presidential election to appear before the justices Friday.
Asked why electoral authorities have not released detailed vote counts, Maduro said the National Electoral Council has come under attack, including cyberattacks, without elaborating.
The Brazilian official said the diplomatic efforts were intended only to promote dialogue among Venezuelan stakeholders to negotiate a solution to the disputed election. The official said this would include releasing voting data and allowing independent verification.
López Obrador said Mexico hoped the will of Venezuela's people would be respected and that there would be no violence. He added that Mexico expected "that the evidence, the electoral results records, be presented."
