Venezuela faces serious crisis if Maduro fails to secure election victory
Photo: EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell (Vitalii Nosach, RBC-Ukraine)
Venezuela could soon face a serious crisis if President Nicolás Maduro fails to validate his victory in the July 2024 elections, according to High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell.
Speaking at an event in Santander, Spain, Borrell highlighted that opposition data from Venezuela significantly diverges from the official election results.
"If Maduro insists on saying he has won and does not want to understand that, for the international community, without verification, there is no assumption of results, Venezuela could enter a serious crisis – we are all trying to prevent this from happening," Borrell said.
His comments followed Maduro's announcement of his victory in the repeat elections, which the US and other Western countries condemned as election fraud.
Borrell urged people to wait and see what unfolds in the coming days, noting that 2,000 people have already been arrested in Venezuela and that crackdowns on protesters are intensifying.
The EU’s top diplomat also described it as "the height of sarcasm" that Maduro has appealed to Venezuela’s Supreme Court to “defend him”.
"I don’t know what it (The Supreme Court), is going to issue as a sentence, because its function is not to count electoral results," Borrell emphasized.
