Washington, Aug. 1, (dpa/GNA) – The power struggle following the disputed presidential election in Venezuela has become more heated.
Authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro said that opposition leader María Corina Machado and her presidential candidate, Edmundo González, belong in prison.
“As a citizen, I say: These people should be behind bars,” Maduro told journalists in Caracas on Wednesday.
The opposition maintains that it won Sunday’s election, in which Maduro was declared the winner despite allegations of fraud. The US is demanding that the electoral authorities make the lists of the votes cast public.
Maduro has promised to audit the results of the election. But the country’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which could ultimately have the final say, is seen as deeply loyal to his government.
Maduro labelled Machado and González criminals and cowards, and tried to pin the blame for the violent protests that followed the election on the opposition.
According to non-governmental organizations in Venezuela, at least 11 people died in the riots. Human Rights Watch said it had received reports that as many as 20 people had died so far. According to the Attorney General’s Office, more than 1,000 people have been arrested.
The opposition blames the government for the protests. “After the clear electoral victory that we Venezuelans have won, the regime’s response is murder, kidnapping and persecution. These crimes will not go unpunished,” Machado wrote on Platform X.
Meanwhile the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) wants the International Criminal Court in The Hague to issue an arrest warrant for Maduro.
“It is time for justice,” Luis Almagro said on Wednesday at an emergency meeting of the organization in Washington.
Before the election, Maduro had warned of bloodshed and civil war in the South American country if he was not re-elected for a third term.
Almagro claimed that Maduro was now carrying out that “bloodbath.”
“It is time to press charges and request an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court against the main perpetrators, including Maduro,” Almagro wrote on Platform X.
“We will request this indictment with an arrest warrant,” he said at the Washington meeting.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating Maduro’s government for alleged crimes against humanity in the country. The government in Caracas rejects the accusations.
The emergency meeting of the OAS saw the organization’s Permanent Council unable to reach a common position on the situation in Venezuela.
A resolution calling for the publication of detailed election results and a guarantee of freedom of assembly failed to gain majority support. Seventeen member states voted in favour of the draft, 11 abstained and five other countries did not send a representative to the meeting.
Maduro’s government unilaterally withdrew from the OAS several years ago, and accused it of being in the service of “imperialism.”