Venezuela's Maduro asks Supreme Court to audit the presidential election, but draws criticism

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, right, stands with Colombian President Gustavo Petro after Petro arrived at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

CARACAS, Venezuela -

President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday asked Venezuela's Supreme Court to conduct an audit of the presidential election after opposition leaders disputed his claim of victory, drawing criticism from foreign observers who said the court is too close to the government to produce an independent review.

Maduro told reporters that the ruling party is also ready to show all the vote tally sheets from Sunday's election.

"I throw myself before justice," he said outside the Supreme Court's headquarters in Caracas, adding that he is "willing to be summoned, questioned, investigated."

This is Maduro's first concession to demands for more transparency about the election. However, the Supreme Court is closely aligned with his government; the court's justices are proposed by federal officials and ratified by the National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro sympathizers.

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The Carter Center, which sent a delegation to Venezuela to monitor the election, criticized Maduro's audit request, saying the court wouldn't provide an independent review.

"You have another government institution, which is appointed by the government, to verify the government numbers for the election results, which are in question," said Jennie K. Lincoln, who led the delegation. "This is not an independent assessment."

The Atlanta-based group said Tuesday night that it was unable to verify the announced results and criticized what it called a "complete lack of transparency" in declaring Maduro the winner. Venezuela's electoral authorities allowed the Carter Center to send 17 observers.

Maduro's main challenger, Edmundo Gonzalez, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado say 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.

Maduro insisted to reporters that there had been a plot against his government and that the electoral system was hacked. Asked later on during a news conference why electoral authorities have not released detailed vote counts, Maduro said the National Electoral Council has come under attack, including cyber-attacks.

"Engineers are fighting right now" to solve those attacks, he said without elaborating.

The government presented some videos that the president said showed people attacking and torching some electoral offices. The Associated Press was not immediately able to verify the images.

More than 1,000 people related to some of those attacks have been arrested, officials said Wednesday.

Pressure has been building on the president since the election. The National Electoral Council, which is loyal to his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, has yet to release any printed results from polling centers as it did in past elections.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro, a close Maduro ally, joined other foreign leaders Wednesday in urging him to release detailed vote counts.

"The serious doubts that have arisen around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of permanent division," Petro said on the social platform X.

"I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count, with the counting of votes, and with the supervision of all the political forces of its country and professional international supervision," he added.

Petro proposed that Maduro's government and the opposition reach an agreement "that allows for the maximum respect of the (political) force that has lost the elections." The agreement, he said, could be submitted to the United Nations Security Council.

His comments came a day after another ally, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, along with U.S. President Joe Biden called for the "immediate release of full, transparent, and detailed voting data at the polling station level."

Brazil's presidential office refused to comment Wednesday on whether a Supreme Court audit would amount to an independent verification. Instead it pointed to a Monday statement from the Ministry for Foreign Relations saying the government awaits "the publication by the National Electoral Council of data broken down by polling station, an indispensable step for the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the election result."

Lula said of Maduro on Tuesday that "the more transparency there is, the greater his chance of having peace to govern Venezuela."

The Organization of American States was set to convene Wednesday to discuss Venezuela's election.

According to Machado, the opposition leader, the vote tallies show Gonzalez received roughly 6.2 million votes compared with 2.7 million for Maduro. That is widely different from the electoral council's report that Maduro received 5.1 million votes, against more than 4.4 million for Gonzalez.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven crude reserves and once boasted Latin America's most advanced economy, but it entered into free fall after Maduro took the helm in 2013. Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared past 130,000% led to social unrest and mass emigration.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest exodus in Latin America's recent history. Many have settled in Colombia.

Speaking to reporters in Vietnam on Wednesday, the European Union's foreign affairs chief said the bloc won't recognize Maduro's claim of electoral victory without independent verification of voting records.

"They should have been provided immediately, as in any democratic electoral process," Josep Borrell said.

Within hours of the electoral council saying Maduro had won, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Caracas and other cities. The protests, which continued into Tuesday, turned violent at times, and law enforcement responded with tear gas and rubber pellets.

The Venezuela-based human rights organization Foro Penal said 11 people, including two minors, were killed in election-related unrest.

Maduro's closest ruling party allies quickly came to his defence. National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez -- his chief negotiator in dialogues with the U.S. and the opposition -- insisted Maduro was the indisputable winner and called his opponents violent fascists. He called for Machado and Gonzalez to be arrested.

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In a Spanish-language post on X, the EU's Borrell urged Venezuelan authorities to "end detentions, repression and violent rhetoric against members of the opposition."

Meanwhile, Machado and Gonzalez urged their supporters to remain calm.

"I ask Venezuelans to continue in peace, demanding that the result be respected and the tally sheets be published," Gonzalez said on X. "This victory, which belongs to all of us, will unite us and reconcile us as a nation."

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Associated Press writer Ella Joyner in Brussels contributed.