SAO PAULO (AP) — Venezuela’s opposition was dealt a blow Thursday when countries that had been pressuring President Nicolás Maduro to release vote tallies backing his claim to victory in last month’s presidential election began suggesting a repeat of the contest instead.
The proposal from the leftist governments of Brazil and Colombia, both Maduro allies, came less than three weeks after the results of the highly anticipated election came into question when the main opposition coalition revealed it has proof that its candidate defeated the president by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
The opposition categorically rejected any plan to redo the election.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, during a virtual news conference with Argentine media, said that repeating the July 28 presidential election would be “an insult” to the people, and she asked if a second election were held and Maduro still didn’t accept the results, “do we go for a third one?”
In Washington, U.S. President Joe Biden expressed support for new elections in comments to reporters that the White House later appeared to back away from.
Redoing the election only takes pressure off Maduro. It’s an empty gesture to appease the opposition for a time, which just gives Maduro room to plan for stealing the next election. And it drags things out for longer, which can easily cause some of the energy to be drained from his opposition, because movements like this tend to fade out after a while.
And what could possibly be the point? If he won’t concede this time, next time won’t be any different.
Better to keep putting as much pressure as possible on Maduro and his regime. No reason to make hanging on to power any easier for him, and even if he can’t be convinced to bow out gracefully, if things get bad enough for him, the decision might not be his to make.
They know that. That’s exactly the point of trying to deflect and downplay this whole fiasco.