Venezuela | Opposition candidate asks Nicolás Maduro to “step aside”

(Caracas) Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who claims victory in the July 28 presidential election, said Monday that he was “ready for dialogue” with a view to a “transition,” asking President Nicolás Maduro to “step aside.”

“Mr. Nicolás Maduro, respect what all Venezuelans have decided […] You and your government need to step aside […] “I am ready for dialogue,” said González Urrutia, a discreet diplomat who replaced opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was declared ineligible, as a candidate.

“Every day that you obstruct the democratic transition, Venezuelans suffer from a country in crisis and without freedom. Clinging to power only exacerbates the suffering of our people. Our time has come,” said González Urrutia, who has not been seen publicly since the beginning of the month.

M^me Machado, who appeared at an opposition rally on Saturday, and González Urrutia are living in hiding while prosecutors have opened criminal investigations against them, including for “incitement to disobedience of the law, incitement to insurrection, criminal conspiracy.” Attorney General Tarek William Saab threatened to indict them on Monday.

The announcement of Mr Maduro’s re-election for a third term sparked spontaneous protests that were brutally repressed. According to official sources, 25 people died, 192 were injured and 2,400 arrested.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) ratified Mr Maduro’s victory with 52% of the vote in early August, without providing the exact count or the minutes of the polling stations, claiming to have been the victim of computer hacking.

The opposition and many observers question the reality of this hacking.

According to the opposition, which made public the electoral documents obtained through its poll workers, Mr González Urrutia won more than 60% of the vote.

Mr Maduro has repeatedly said he is facing an attempted “coup d’état” and told his supporters on Sunday: “They will never be able to defeat us, because we carry within us the strength of history, the strength of the homeland, the strength of God. We have won.”