Machado: Opposition would offer Maduro incentives to negotiate transition to democracy

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Thursday the opposition is willing to offer “guarantees” and “incentives” in negotiations with the country’s strongman, Nicolas Maduro, if he recognizes the results of the July 28 presidential elections showing that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won.

Machado, who won the opposition primaries but was not allowed to run by Venezuelan authorities loyal to Maduro, said the opposition has four points in a potential negotiation.

“One: We start from the recognition of the results of July 28,” she told reporters from Mexican outlets in a video call Thursday. “Two: It is a negotiation for an orderly and stable democratic transition in Venezuela. Three: We are going to provide guarantees, safeguards, and incentives so that it takes place as soon as possible. And four, it has to be a negotiation in which the people of Venezuela, the leaders that the people of Venezuela trust and the sectors of civil society are represented.”

Machado said efforts by Brazil and Colombia to open a communication channel between Maduro and the opposition are positive, but she stressed that the opposition would not negotiate Gonzalez’s electoral victory, which has been confirmed by data collected by the opposition and independently verified by experts, media outlets and foreign governments.

“We are not going to negotiate the election’s results,” she said. “We are not going to accept a power-sharing scheme where Maduro remains in power, and some spaces are given (to us) because that would be ignoring the public’s will.”

Machado told Colombian television channel Caracol that any offers to deal with the Maduro regime are in “too much of a preliminary stage to say that a negotiation exists.”

There is no evidence that the Maduro regime is willing to negotiate with the opposition. The regime, which has faced massive protests in the aftermath of the election, maintains it won the vote and has threatened to jail opposition leaders on charges of encouraging an insurrection.

A U.S. congressional source said the Mexican government is the least involved of the three countries seeking a dialogue between the Maduro government and the opposition. Machado told Mexican reporters she has not been in contact with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

After the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council declared him the winner of the July 28 elections with numbers widely seen as fraudulent, the opposition quickly gathered paper tallies that verified about 80% of the votes cast and showed Gonzalez had won in a landslide with 67% of the vote.

U.S. officials have said the paper trail presented by the opposition was “irrefutable” evidence that Gonzalez won. Independent analyses by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and the Carter Center, one of the few independent electoral observers allowed in Venezuela for the election, reached a similar conclusion.

Jennie Lincoln, the head of the Carter Center’s delegation that monitored the election, told the news agency Agence France-Presse that the center “ran the same numbers” from the data gathered by the opposition and confirmed Gonzalez defeated Maduro, winning more than 60% of the votes. She also said the center found no evidence of hacking on election day, as Maduro has contended.

Maduro said the alleged hacking prevented the electoral council from releasing its voting data, as many governments around the world have urged. He then requested that the country’s Supreme Court, also under his control, audit the results in a move that many fear could be another trap for Gonzalez and his movement.

Francisco Santos, a former Colombian vice president and ambassador to the United States, said Maduro would use the legal maneuver to validate fake results presented by the electoral council, discredit the data presented by the opposition and eventually arrest Gonzalez and Machado.

On Thursday, State Department’ spokesperson Matthew Miller said the U.S. is engaging with partners in the region and “ready to support an inclusive Venezuelan-led process to reestablish democratic norms.”

The Biden administration has acknowledged Gonzalez’s electoral victory but has not officially recognized him as president-elect. Miller declined to say if the administration is engaged in talks with Maduro. Last year, the administration held secret negotiations with Venezuela in Qatar that paved the way for the elections and the lifting of some U.S. sanctions against the Maduro government.

Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who has been involved for years in policies toward Venezuela, called the administration’s “unwillingness” to refer to Gonzalez as president-elect “disgraceful.”

“The Biden-Harris Administration claimed concessions to the Maduro regime would secure a ‘free and fair’ election process in Venezuela, yet we all know it was a farce,” he said in a statement. “The ‘strategies’ presented by this administration have done nothing but empower narco-dictator Maduro and his thugs. ... Our nation’s message must be clear: We stand for freedom, we recognize Edmundo González as the president-elect, and that Maduro’s illegitimate reign must come to an end.”

In a call hosted by the Washington think tank Atlantic Council on Thursday, Frank Mora, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, said he understood the frustration of those calling for bolder action from the United States, given the Maduro regime’s crackdown on protesters, members of the opposition and journalists. However, he said it was important to give initiatives such as those initiated by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico “space to move forward.”

He said the U.S. is working to continue diplomatic pressure on Maduro and pass a resolution at a OAS meeting next week condemning the violence and calling on Maduro to release vote tallies. A similar effort to pass such a resolution at the OAS failed last week after several countries abstained or were absent.

“We will not abandon the Venezuelan people,” Mora said.

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