MEPs from both the European Conservative and Reformists (ECR) Group and the Patriots of Europe (PfE) have signed a statement rejecting the results announced by Venezuela’s Electoral Council that officially proclaimed Nicolás Maduro’s re-election as President.
Signatories included Alexander Jungbluth of Alternative for Germany (AfD), Eniko Gyori from Hungary’s Fidesz and Carlo Fidanza from Fratelli D’ Italia.
The statement recognised opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia as the “unquestionable winner” and “President-elect” of Venezuela following the July 28 vote.
Spain’s Conservative VOX party rallied 307 MPs and public officials from 27 countries, both in Europe and Latin America, to reject the official election result.
The 307 signatories “will not legitimise the results “because they are “the product of a massive fraud”, the statement read.
They also made an “urgent call to all democratic forces and governments to not recognise the false results”.
Just hours after the statement was released, Maduro accused VOX President Santiago Abascal of trying to plot a “fascist coup” against him in cahoots with former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro “and the rest of the world’s far-right led by the North American empire”.
On the evening of Juy 28, Maduro also aimed insults at Argentinian President Javier Milei, calling him “stupid” and a “dictator”.
In the following day’s press conference, Maduro heightened tensions, calling Milei a “nazi-fascist sociopath”.
Milei was one of the first world leaders to decry the election as a “fraud”.
He added: “The Venezuelan ‘lions’ have awakened,” adding that “sooner or later socialism will be over”.
According to many accounts and unofficial exit polls — which are illegal in Venezuela — González Urrutia won the election with an clear majority.
The situation in Venezuela has sparked a diplomatic crisis in parts of the region.
The left-leaning Chilean President Gabriel Boric said the results were “hard to believe” and demanded “total transparency”.
Maduro proceeded to expel from Venezuela Chile’s diplomats as well as Argentina’s, Costa Rica’s, Ecuador’s, Guatemala’s, Paraguay’s, Uruguay’s, Peru’s and Panama’s.
Panama had pre-emptively suspended diplomatic relations with the country. Two days ahead of the election, Maduro banned a Panamanian plane bringing high-profile observers including former presidents of Mexico, Panama, and Bolivia, from its airspace
The Venezuelan government also deported a delegation from Spain’s centre-right Partido Popular party led by European Parliament Vice-President Esteban González Pons.
Some other countries in the region and abroad, though, congratulated Maduro for his alleged win. Spain’s Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz from the progressive SUMAR party, President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, Honduran President Xiomara Castro, and Belarus’ Alexandr Lukashenko, all backed the result.
At the time of writing, protesters had taken to the streets in Caracas and other major cities in Venezuela, leaving one person dead.
