Canada has 'serious concerns' about Venezuelan election results, Freeland says
Poilievre says election a 'sham', foreign minister calls for transparent accounting of votes
Canada's deputy prime minister is echoing comments made by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying Canada has "serious concerns" about the official results of the election in Venezuela.
Speaking in Toronto, Chrystia Freeland said the government is in conversation with its allies over the results amid claims from Venezuelans that the vote was rigged.
"Canada has been supporting the democratic opposition and condemning an increasingly severe authoritarian regime in Venezuela for many years now," said Freeland.
"I want people of Venezuela, the democrats of Venezuela, to know that Canada stands with them and recognizes that they are fighting hard for democracy and freedom."
Venezuela's election authority, the government-controlled National Electoral Council, claims that incumbent Nicolas Maduro won 51.2 per cent of the vote, beating opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez who received 44.2 per cent.
The opposition, led by Gonzales and Maria Corina Machado, have rejected the legitimacy of the official results.
Speaking to reporters following the results, Machado said Gonzalez's victory was "overwhelming" based on the campaign's own exit polls.
Critics have said Maduro, who has been in power since 2013, has unfairly arrested or persecuted dissidents and presided over crushed protests and economic hardship.
Machado herself was barred from running for president by the country's high court and has been called a freedom fighter and a "symbol of resistance to the regime."
Canada's Conservative Leader, Pierre Poilievre, issued a statement calling on the Trudeau government to not acknowledge the re-election of the Maduro regime, saying Maduro is refusing to accept the will of the people.
"This is evident from numerous reports of serious electoral irregularities in the counting of votes," said Poilievre in a statement.
Though the election authority released an overall result, it did not release the results from the 30,000 individual polling stations in the hours following the vote, prompting questions and suspicions about the tally.
Poilievre, whose wife Anaida is an immigrant from Venezuela, urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to not recognize the results of Sunday's election until the Maduro regime releases a full accounting of votes and access to voting records at polling stations.
"The government of Canada must do everything in its power to support the people of Venezuela as they fight for freedom and real democracy in their country," Poilievre said.
On the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Joly called on Venezuelan authorities to publish detailed results for all polling stations. There have been similar calls from the United Kingdom and the European Union.
International skepticism
Yesterday's election result prompted nine Latin American governments to publish a joint letter expressing "profound concern" over the election.
Those nine governments are also calling for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States.
Chilean President Gabriel Boric said the Maduro regime "should understand that the results it published are difficult to believe." The country's foreign minister posted in a Spanish-language statement on X that Chile would refrain from recognizing "any result that is not verifiable."
Speaking in Tokyo, Blinken also called on the Venezuelan authorities to provide a detailed and transparent accounting of the vote.
"The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly," he said.
Western powers, including Canada and the United States, also considered Maduro's 2018 re-election to be fraudulent.
Freeland, who was foreign affairs minister at the time, issued a scathing statement in response to those presidential elections, calling them "illegitimate and anti-democratic" and vowing to downgrade diplomatic relations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Associated Press and Reuters