Venezuela | Opposition leader calls for new protests on August 28

(Caracas) Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Saturday night called on her compatriots to “take to the streets” on August 28, exactly one month after the election marked by the contested re-election of President Nicolas Maduro.

“Venezuelans are back on the streets. This August 28; with your family, with your children, with your grandchildren,” said Mr.^me Machado on the social network X. The opposition claims victory for its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.

Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia, who like Mr.^me Machado has been living in semi-clandestine conditions for a month and has been summoned by the courts for Monday to be questioned as part of a criminal investigation.

“Citizen Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia” is summoned “on August 26 at 10 a.m. for a hearing” in connection with the investigation into the website where the opposition published its presidential results, according to the summons published on social networks.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab had announced on Friday that Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia would be summoned, explaining in particular that the site “usurp[ait] » the power of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

He accuses the opposition in particular of the post-election violence. The announcement of Mr. Maduro’s re-election sparked spontaneous demonstrations, which were brutally repressed. They left 27 dead, 192 injured and 2,400 people arrested, according to official sources.

Nicolas Maduro, 61, was declared the winner with 52% of the vote by the CNE, which did not, however, make public the minutes of all the polling stations, as required by law, saying it was the victim of computer hacking.

Such an attack is considered implausible by the opposition and many observers, who see it as a maneuver by the government to avoid disclosing the exact count.

According to the opposition, which made public the minutes obtained through its scrutineers, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the election with 67% of the votes.

Venezuela’s Supreme Court on Thursday validated Maduro’s re-election for a second six-year term. Without showing them, it assured that it had verified the minutes submitted by the government, as well as the reality of the computer attack against the CNE.

Brazil and Colombia again asked the Venezuelan government on Saturday to publish the polling station reports.

In a joint statement, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro said they were “convinced that the credibility of the electoral process can only be restored through the transparent publication of detailed and verifiable data.”