Summary of the day
Nicolás Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election by the government-controlled electoral authority.
Venezuela’s electoral council claimed Maduro had won with 51.21% of votes compared with 44.2% for his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.
Independent observers had described the election as the most arbitrary in recent years.
The US vice president, Kamala Harris, said “the will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the many challenges, we will continue to work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela.”
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said “we have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
Luis Lacalle Pou, the president of Uruguay, said: “Not like that! It was an open secret that they were going to ‘win’ whatever the real results were.”
Colombia’s foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, called for a “total vote count” in Venezuela, with “its verification and independent audit to be carried out as soon as possible”.
Argentina’s populist, firebrand president, Javier Milei, was characteristically insistent. “GET OUT, MADURO, YOU DICTATOR!!!” he wrote on X.
Brazil’s only observer of the Venezuelan election, Celso Amorim, the top advisor for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated that the Brazilian government will only comment on the results after reviewing the records.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has stressed that “the people of Venezuela voted on the future of their country peacefully” and “their will must be respected.”
The British foreign office said “we are concerned by allegations of serious irregularities” and “we call for the swift and transparent publication of full, detailed results to ensure that the outcome reflects the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, congratulated Maduro, and the Kremlin said that Russia was working to deepen its ties with Venezuela.
Ione Belarra, who leads Spain’s far-left, anti-austerity Podemos party, has called for people to respect Sunday’s result, saying “the right only goes along with democracy when it wins and that is unacceptable.”
Mike Pence, the former US vice president, has said Joe Biden “must restore sanctions immediately and rally the free world until Maduro is Gone and Libertad is Restored.”
After decades of dictatorship and deprivation, Venezuelans voted in historic numbers for change and now Maduro declares himself the winner. @potus Biden must restore sanctions immediately and rally the free world until Maduro is Gone and Libertad is Restored.🇺🇸🇻🇪…
— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) July 29, 2024
