White House walks back Biden's comments on new elections in Venezuela

President Joe Biden caused a stir on Thursday when he appeared to say he supports holding new presidential elections in Venezuela, following similar comments by his Brazilian counterpart earlier in the day.

The South American nation is consumed by a political crisis after the Venezuelan National Electoral Council declared the country’s strongman, Nicolas Maduro, as the winner of the July 28 election, with numbers widely believed to be fraudulent and contested by the opposition.

On Thursday, a Voice of America reporter asked Biden, “Do you support new elections in Venezuela?” to which he replied, “I do,” during brief comments to reporters in the afternoon at the White House.

Earlier on Thursday, Brazil’s president, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, proposed that Maduro form a coalition government with the opposition or call for new presidential elections as possible solutions to the political crisis — ideas that the Venezuelan opposition has forcefully rejected.

However, a National Security Council spokesperson said Biden was not calling for a new election but “speaking to the absurdity of Maduro and his representatives not coming clean about the July 28 elections” when he answered the question.

“It is abundantly clear to the majority of the Venezuelan people, the United States, and a growing number of countries that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia (the opposition candidate) won the most votes on July 28,” the spokesperson said. “The United States again calls for the will of the Venezuelan people to be respected and for discussions to begin on a transition back to democratic norms.”

Several countries, including the United States and Brazil, have not recognized Maduro’s victory and have urged the Venezuelan National Electoral Council to release a detailed vote tabulation. The Biden administration has said it supports efforts by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to facilitate talks between Maduro and the opposition. However, the White House has not called Gonzalez “president-elect” and avoids explicitly calling him the “winner” of the election, despite acknowledging that he won most of the votes.

But Lula’s call for new elections, echoed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro in a publication on X, adds to the doubts about their that mediation efforts because Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has reiterated that the opposition will not negotiate the electoral results nor share power with Maduro.

“So we are going to a second election. If they don´t like the results, are we going to a third, fourth or fifth election until Maduro likes the result? Will you accept that in your countries?” she told reporters after Lula’s comments to Brazilian Radio T were published Thursday morning.

Speaking of Brazil and Colombia’s efforts to find a solution to the crisis, Lula suggested Maduro “can form a coalition government with the opposition” or call for new elections.

“Maduro still has six months left in his term,” Lula said. “He is the president regardless of the election. If he has good sense, he could call upon the people of Venezuela, perhaps even call for new elections, create an electoral committee and allow observers from around the world to monitor.”

He said he “still did not” recognize Maduro’s electoral victory but also did not acknowledge the evidence of the vote presented by the opposition and validated by the Carter Center and other independent entities, showing that opposition candidate Gonzalez won in a landslide with 67% of the vote.

“Those who want the opposition to win, I can’t say the opposition won because I don’t have the data. And I can’t say Maduro won because I don’t have the data,” Lula said. He urged the Venezuelan National Electoral Council, which has not presented the tabulation of the vote despite calls by the international community, to say “who won.”

Maduro “knows he owes an explanation to his people and the world,” he said

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