Montevideo says González Urrutia won but still not president-elect

Montevideo says González Urrutia won but still not president-elect

Appointing the president-elect “is a formal process that has not yet taken place,” Paganini explained

Uruguayan Foreign Minister Omar Paganini said Friday that there was an “overwhelming amount of information” whereby opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia may be considered the winner of Sunday’s elections. However, Montevideo could not recognize him as president-elect because that legal procedure was up to the Venezuelan authorities.

“There is no doubt that there is an overwhelming amount of information that gives the winner to Edmundo González Urrutia,” Paganini stressed. “We see that there is a great pressure and there is a public opinion that is consolidating around that this was a fraud and that it can be reverted and reversed,” he added. Paganini also noted that Uruguay was not alone in feeling this way about the Venezuelan crisis.

“The information presented by the government is incomplete, the minutes are not shown, [and] independent reviews are not accepted,” Paganini also explained. “They say numbers that from the beginning clearly did not add up.”

“The government is not credible and the opposition took the trouble and in an unprecedented task of scanning 100% of the minutes and they are on the Internet for everybody to see,” the minister elaborated.

“They are minutes that have not been discussed, that have the QR code, that have signatures, handwritten data by people from the Venezuelan Electoral Commission. That overwhelming information also gives very similar to what the polls, the surveys at the time of the election gave; 67%, 68% for the opposition, 30% for the government,” added Paganini.

“Some have already said more or less the same as we did today, Peru, Costa Rica, the United States, [and] Argentina. And there are others who are demanding an independent review and an independent count, that the detailed information be made known,” he underlined.

“Some things that were under discussion a couple of days ago are not under discussion today. Today Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are asking for it. The clamor for the data to be put on the table and for an independent review is getting louder and louder,” he also noted.

“We go one step further, we say that we are sure that this review will result in González Urrutia winning,” he hoped while making it clear that the Uruguayan government technically does not yet recognize González Urrutia as president-elect, but as the winner of the July 28 elections. “We believe that assuming the elected presidency and so on is a formal process that has not yet taken place,” he explained.

On Friday afternoon, Machado, who assured that she is in “clandestinity” because she fears for her life and freedom, announced that 100% of the polling stations had been counted. The numbers of Sunday’s election, according to this website, show that Gonzalez defeated Maduro with 7,156,462 votes over 3,241,461.

At least seven countries in the Americas have recognized Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of Venezuela’s elections: The United States, Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay, and Panama.