U.S. President Joe Biden appeared to agree with the proposal of having Venezuela repeat the July 28 sham presidential election, leading the White House to walk back statements Biden personally made shortly thereafter.
On Thursday, Biden was asked by a reporter from Voice of America (VOA) if he supports new elections in Venezuela. Biden responded to the question by saying, “I do.”
El presidente de EEUU, Joe Biden, dijo este jueves que apoyaría una nueva elección en Venezuela en respuesta a una pregunta de la Voz de América en la Casa Blanca. Sin embargo, la administración no ha ofrecido aclaración sobre las declaraciones. https://t.co/fhzpRrtt6s pic.twitter.com/MK12ETBF1u
— Voz de América (@VozdeAmerica) August 15, 2024
Reuters and the Associated Press reported that Biden’s statement came after far-left Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia suggested that Venezuela hold a second election following the sham vote in July as a means to solve the ongoing political crisis in the country.
Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro has repeatedly insisted that he “won” the sham election despite the continued refusal of the electoral authorities — loyal to Maduro — to publish voter data or any other type of documentation that can demonstrate his alleged “victory.”
The Venezuelan opposition claimed its candidate, Edmundo González, defeated Maduro in a landslide and has published voter tallies collected from voting centers nationwide that demonstrate González defeated Maduro by a margin of more than 35 percentage points.
VOA reported on Thursday that the Biden administration informed the outlet that President Biden had “understood VOA’s question differently.” A National Security Council spokesperson “reiterated the Biden administration’s stance” to VOA through an email, claiming that Biden “was speaking to the absurdity of Maduro and his representatives not coming clean about the July 28 elections.”
“It is abundantly clear to the majority of the Venezuelan people, the United States, and a growing number of countries that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes on July 28,” the spokesperson reportedly told VOA. “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.”
VOA stated in its report that the spokesperson “did not say definitively where Biden stands on whether the election should be repeated.”
Bloomberg also reported on Thursday that, according to a White House spokesperson, Biden “intended to speak to the absurdity of Venezuelan President Maduro failing to come clean after claiming victory in the July 28 vote, with data suggesting that opposition candidate Edmundo González prevailed.”
White House National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a social media post that “Maduro & his representatives must come clean about Venezuela’s July 28 elections.”
“It is abundantly clear that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes,” Savett’s message read. “We call for the will of the people to be respected & for discussions to begin on a transition back to democratic norms.”
Maduro accused the United States of wanting to “become the electoral authority” of Venezuela after the U.S. government reiterated that it considered González the winner of the sham election. Maduro urged President Biden to focus on the “many problems” that the United States has.
The socialist dictator also commented on the White House backing down from Biden’s statements over the proposal of repeating the election.
“President Biden made an interventionist statement on Venezuela’s internal affairs and, half an hour later, some spokesmen denied it,” Maduro said. “In the end, who rules in the United States?”
Prior to Biden’s statements and the White House’s backdown, Brazilian President Lula da Silva, in remarks given to a local Brazilian radio station, suggested that Maduro could call for a redo of the sham election or form a new “coalition government” with the Venezuelan opposition in the following months.
Lula claimed that until now “it is not known who won the elections” because the Venezuelan electoral authorities have not released vote results. The far-left president claimed that he cannot say who won the election because he “does not have [the] data.”
“There are several ways out. One is a coalition government, a coalition government with the opposition,” Lula said. “There are many people in my government who did not vote for me and others did.”
“Everybody is going to participate in a [coalition] government.” he continued. “Maduro has six months of mandate. If he has common sense, he could even call for new elections, creating an electoral committee with members of the opposition and observers from all over the world.”
Lula’s “suggestion,” highly beneficial to Maduro, was echoed by his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro, who, in addition to making similar calls for a coalition government and a repeat of the sham elections in Venezuela, demanded that all sanctions imposed on the Maduro regime be lifted and the rogue socialists be granted “general amnesty.”
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado rejected Lula and Petro’s proposals of repeating the election, condemning them as a “lack of respect” who voted to oust Maduro.
“What if Maduro does not like the second elections? We go to a third one? Would you accept that in your countries? We went to elections with the rules of the tyranny,” Machado said. “To propose a new election is disrespectful to Venezuelans and to July 28.”
Machado also rejected the idea of a coalition government, explaining, “we have to be careful because we cannot share power because there are very big political differences.” Machado also pointed out that examples of other countries forming coalition governments cannot apply to Venezuela, as, in those countries, the government officials were not involved in criminal activities.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.