Venezuela Accuses Maduro Rival of Sabotage, Triggering Protests

(Bloomberg) -- Venezuela named opposition leader María Corina Machado as a key suspect in its investigation of alleged electoral sabotage in Sunday’s presidential vote, escalating tensions while the result is still under dispute.

Machado was involved in a plot to alter voting results sent from polling places to electoral authority headquarters, Public Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said Monday in a news conference. President Nicolás Maduro, whose declaration as the vote’s winner was met with wide skepticism from the international community, has said polling totals were delayed because of a cyberattack.

While Saab stopped short of announcing an arrest warrant for Machado or accusing her of a specific crime, the news is likely to invite further international criticism of the Maduro regime. The president is already facing calls from the US and several Latin American countries for a full accounting of the vote.

Though Caracas had been quiet most of the morning, protests began intensifying in some parts of the capital soon after Saab’s news conference. Crowds banged on pots, shouted “Fraud!” and burned tires across the main highway connecting a Caracas to La Guaira, blocking all traffic to the city’s international airport. National guardsmen were arriving to disperse them.

Maduro ran against Edmundo González, an opposition candidate backed by Machado after she was banned from running. While she wasn’t contending for the presidency, Machado campaigned across the country on González’s behalf and drew throngs of supporters who saw her as an inspirational figure after years of hardship under Maduro.

Machado last appeared in public early Monday morning after the election agency’s announcement of initial results. She is expected to address reporters later in Caracas, according to her press team.

The electoral authority said Maduro won Sunday’s election with 51.2% of votes, against 44.2% of votes favoring González. The opposition disavowed the results and said several unofficial accounts showed González won with 70% of votes.

Regional peers including Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru have demanded to see proof of Maduro’s victory, while Panama announced a temporary suspension of ties with the Caracas regime. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US had “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

The head of Venezuela’s electoral authority, which is controlled by Maduro’s allies, certified his victory after Saab spoke. But the Carter Center, which was invited to Venezuela as an election observer, demanded the immediate release of polling center-level voting data. 

President Joe Biden’s administration will determine future sanctions on Venezuela based on whether Maduro’s government fully releases that data, according to senior US administration officials speaking to reporters in Washington on condition they not be named. 

That citizens are starting to take to the streets is no surprise. An early July survey by Caracas-based firm Delphos found that almost 40% of Venezuelans believed that if there was fraud, they should protest until the government recognizes the real results of the election.

Though Maduro has stabilized the economy and tamed hyperinflation, he has still presided over one of the deepest humanitarian and economic crises in modern history, leading to the exodus 7.7 million people.

Machado and González sought to dismantle government controls on the economy, privatize the oil industry and reunite families torn apart by the diaspora. Their movement was unlike any seen since the rise of the late Hugo Chávez in the 1990s.

The alleged cyberattack was launched from North Macedonia, Saab said. It was planned by Machado along with Leopoldo López and Lester Toledo, leaders of the Popular Will opposition party, he added. 

Both López and Toledo are exiled. López is a renowned former political prisoner, while Toledo is one of the members of the opposition’s delegation for talks with the government. Neither of them immediately replied to separate requests for comments.

“Fortunately this action was stopped, avoided,” Saab said. “They did not want to slow down the announcement of results, but rather to adulterate the voting records themselves.”

(Updates with protests beginning in 4th paragraph.)

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