Venezuela’s opposition leaders, who are widely believed to have beaten Nicolás Maduro in last week’s disputed presidential election, have urged the police and armed forces to abandon the strongman leader and his “despicable interests”.
In an open letter to Venezuelan security forces, Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado claimed they had won an “avalanche” victory over Maduro in the 28 July vote – a conclusion supported by analyses of election data carried out by the Associated Press and the Washington Post and which a growing number of western governments have also reached.
