CARACAS, (Reuters) – The office of Venezuela’s top prosecutor issued a second summons yesterday for opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez to be questioned about an opposition website that published detailed results of last month’s disputed presidential election.
The summons mark the latest efforts by domestic allies of socialist President Nicolas Maduro to fend off challenges to the leader’s proclaimed reelection which critics say was not transparent.
Some Western countries, nearly all democracies in the Americas and international bodies like a United Nations panel of experts have called for the government to release detailed vote tallies, with some accusing it of seeking to steal the election.
So far, the electoral authority and Maduro have refused to do so. Also on Monday, Nicaragua’s president, one of the Venezuelan leader’s few international backers, offered fresh support.
Opposition leader Gonzalez, 74-year-old former diplomat and presidential hopeful, was issued the first summons over the weekend to appear on Monday morning, but he had not appeared by around midday, according to Reuters witnesses.
The second summons, posted on social media by the attorney general’s office, calls for him to appear on Tuesday morning to testify about alleged usurpation of functions of the electoral authority, falsification of official documents, incitement of illegal activity and other crimes.
Gonzalez took to social media on Sunday to assert he was being called for the interview “without precision about the condition under which I will testify and pre-accused of crimes that were not committed.”
Venezuelan law allows the issuance of an arrest warrant when someone violates a summons three times.
In a speech to a regional group that backs Maduro, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega lashed out at Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, dismissing his calls that full results from Venezuela’s election be released.
Lula has been joined by his fellow leftist presidents in Colombia and Mexico in calling for election transparency, though he has gone further in suggesting new elections could potentially solve the deadlock.
Ortega argued Maduro should be recognized as the winner, saving his harshest criticism for Brazil’s president.
“You’re degrading yourself Lula,” said Ortega, calling him “servile” and a fake progressive.
Venezuela’s national electoral authority and its top court have named Maduro the victor of the July 28 election, citing just over half of the votes. But the scanned copies of over 20,000 voting machine receipts posted on the opposition website just days after the election show a resounding victory for Gonzalez.
The opposition says its tally covers more than 80% of the vote.
Ruling party officials have accused the opposition of stoking violence and Attorney General Tarek Saab has launched criminal probes into opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, Gonzalez and the website earlier this month.
Protests since the vote have led to at least 27 deaths and 2,400 arrests.
Detentions of opposition figures and protesters have continued in the weeks since, as the ruling party-controlled national assembly passed a law tightening rules on NGOs and unions denounced alleged forced resignations of state employees espousing pro-opposition views.
