Venezuelan opposition looks for narrowing paths to power 🎉
CARACAS, July 31 - Venezuela's opposition, which says that it - and not President Nicolas Maduro - won Sunday's presidential election, is scrambling for ways to find a path to power despite significant obstacles.
Opposition leaders say they have access to around 90% of vote tallies - which by law are supposed to be given to witnesses at vote counts - and the printouts of those tallies show their candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won more than twice as many votes as Maduro.
But the OPEC nation's incumbent president has declared victory and denounced the resulting protests around the country as an attempted coup. The electoral council - which the opposition says is allied to Maduro - has backed his but not provided a full vote breakdown.
Two opposition sources, who asked to remain anonymous, said that for now its focus is on pressuring the government to release all the tallies. They did not say how they would do that.
Other opposition pathways to power could include a negotiated solution or the hope that the protests will increase foreign pressure on the government.
All such efforts face long odds, analysts said.
"The challenges are significant," said Oswaldo Ramirez of Caracas firm ORC Consultores. "The opposition must show it has the tallies and send them to other countries as proof."
Even if it managed that, it is unclear what that would achieve. Maduro has for years shrugged off Western disapproval and sanctions and counts on the support of China, Russia, Cuba and other nations aligned against the United States.
Waves of anti-government protests in 2014, 2017 and 2019 led to hundreds of deaths and failed to dislodge Maduro.
Since Monday, protests around the country have resulted in at least 11 deaths. The government has said two members of the security forces also died.
Reuters witnesses in several cities have seen clashes between security forces and opposition protesters, as well as attacks on protesters by ruling party-allied motorcycle riders known as collectives.
