The US government on Thursday responded to Venezuela’s disputed July presidential election by imposing sanctions against 16 allies of President Nicolás Maduro, accusing them of obstructing the vote and carrying out human rights abuses.
Those targeted by the Treasury Department include the head of the country’s high court, leaders of state security forces and prosecutors. The move came days after the departure into exile of Edmundo González Urrutia, the former diplomat who represented the main opposition parties and claimed to have won the July 28 presidential election by a wide margin.
Venezuela’s electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor hours after polls closed, but unlike previous presidential elections, they never released detailed vote tallies to back up their claim arguing that the National Electoral Council’s website was hacked. To the surprise of supporters and opponents, González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado shortly afterward announced not only that their campaign had obtained vote tallies from over two-thirds of the electronic voting machines used in the election but also that they had published them online to show the world that Maduro had lost.
Global condemnation over the lack of transparency prompted Maduro to ask Venezuela’s high court, stacked with ruling party loyalists, to audit the results. The court reaffirmed his victory.
Experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which observed the election at the invitation of Maduro’s government, determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. The UN experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory but said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.
“Rather than respecting the will of the Venezuelan people as expressed at the ballot box, Maduro and his representatives have falsely claimed victory while repressing and intimidating the democratic opposition in an illegitimate attempt to cling to power by force,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
According to The Associated Press, the State Department said it is placing new visa restrictions on Maduro allies who are accused of impeding the vote and repressing Venezuelans. The department did not name those individuals.
The potential effect of the individual sanctions and visa restrictions announced Thursday is unclear. Previously punished Maduro loyalists still play key roles in Venezuela's government, including as vice president, attorney general and defense minister.
Venezuela’s government released a statement that characterized the latest set of sanctions as a “rude act that seeks to ingratiate itself with a political class that has resorted to fascist and violent practices to overthrow, without success,” Maduro.
