US diplomacy today warned Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that he risks uniting the international community against him if the authorities detain opposition leaders.
The US ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Francisco Mora, said that arresting opposition leader Maria Corina Machado or the presidential candidate of that camp, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, "would be a step that could further mobilize the international community, including countries that do not want to make too many waves" against Venezuela.
"If Maduro does this, he will unite the international community in a way that he has no idea about, and his efforts to divide and fracture it will have completely failed," the ambassador added in statements to the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank.
Gonzalez Urrutia and Machado are at risk of being arrested, especially since the prosecution has opened an investigation against them for, among other things, "incitement of insurrection."
Maduro's re-election was proclaimed by the electoral authority, however, according to the opposition, which published the results obtained thanks to its scrutineers - the validity of which is rejected by Nicolás Maduro - Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the vote.
The United States believes, like other countries, that the opposition won, but has not yet taken any measures against Maduro's government and, according to Mora, leaves Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to lead diplomatic efforts "to find a way forward".
Meanwhile, Venezuela's Foreign Minister, Yván Gil, today accused the Carter Center - which participated as an observer in the presidential elections of July 28 - of supporting a "coup d'état", after the institution claimed to have analyzed data confirming that the winner was González Urrutia and not Maduro, as announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
"It is a shame to place this institution in the coup plot, supporting the execution of the most flagrant electoral crimes we have seen in the republican era of Venezuela, committed by the fascist hordes", Gil expressed through the social network X.
Venezuela, a country with a significant community of Portuguese and Portuguese descendants, held presidential elections on July 28, after which the National Electoral Council (CNE) attributed the victory to Maduro with just over 51% of the votes, while the opposition claims that its candidate, former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, obtained almost 70% of the votes.
The Venezuelan opposition and several countries in the international community denounced electoral fraud and demanded that the voting records be presented for independent verification, which the CNE says is impossible due to a "cyberattack" of which it was allegedly the target.
The election results have been contested on the streets, with demonstrations repressed by security forces, with around two thousand arrests and more than two dozen fatalities.
