Maduro told reporters Wednesday that the ruling party is also ready to show the totality of the tally sheets from Sunday’s election.
“I throw myself before justice,” he said to reporters outside the Supreme Court’s headquarters in Caracas, adding that he is “willing to be summoned, questioned, investigated.”
This is Maduro’s first concession to demands for more transparency about the election. However, the Supreme Court is closely aligned with his government; federal officials propose the court’s justices and they are ratified by the National Assembly, which is dominated by Maduro sympathizers.
Maduro’s main challenger, Edmundo González, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, say they obtained more than two-thirds of the tally sheets that each electronic voting machine printed after polls closed. They said the release of the data on those tallies would prove Maduro lost the election.
Maduro insisted to reporters that there had been a plot against his government and that the electoral system was hacked, but he didn’t give any specifics or present any evidence. He is expected to address national and foreign media Wednesday afternoon, his first official news conference since the election.
Pressure has been building against the president. The National Electoral Council, which is loyal to his United Socialist Party of Venezuela, has yet to release any printed results from polling centers as it did in past elections.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab on Tuesday told reporters that more than 700 protesters were arrested in nationwide demonstrations Monday and that one officer was killed.
The Venezuela-based human rights organization Foro Penal also on Tuesday reported that 11 people, including two minors, had been killed in unrest related to the election.
The Organization of American States was set to gather Wednesday to discuss Venezuela’s election.
Maduro’s closest ruling party allies quickly came to his defense. National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez — his chief negotiator in dialogues with the U.S. and the opposition — insisted Maduro was the indisputable winner and called his opponents violent fascists.
Praising the arrests of the protesters, he said Machado should be jailed and so should González, “because he is the leader of the fascist conspiracy that is trying to impose itself in Venezuela.”
In a Spanish-language post on X, the EU’s Borrell urged Venezuelan authorities to “end detentions, repression and violent rhetoric against members of the opposition,” calling threats against González and Machado “unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, Machado and González urged their supporters to remain calm and avoid violence.
“I ask Venezuelans to continue in peace, demanding that the result be respected and the tally sheets be published,” González said on X. “This victory, which belongs to all of us, will unite us and reconcile us as a nation.”