this is democracy Now democracynow.org the Warren peace report I'm Amy Goodman we turn now to Venezuela where tensions rising over the contested results of the presidential election that took place just over a week ago the incumbent president Nicholas Maduro who was declared the winner by Venezuela's national electoral Council has vowed to pulverize the us-backed opposition which has released thousands of vote tally sheets to back its claims that opposition candidate edmundo Gonzalez received more than twice as many votes as Maduro countries including the US Argentina Uruguay Costa Rica and Ecuador have recognized Gonzalez as Venezuela's President elect but others have questioned the authenticity of the opposition's tally sheets which Gonzalez and fellow opposition leader Maria Karina Machado said they secured from polling centers Nationwide dueling protests continue in karakas and other cities this weekend both in support of Muro and against him rights groups have denounced the Crackdown on opposition protests with Human Rights Watch estimating at least 20 people have been killed by Venezuelan Armed Forces Maduro spoke from karakus Saturday we have 2,000 prisoners captured from there they go to Tak Kuran and toito prisons maximum punishment Justice this time there will be no forgiveness this time there will be tun prison on Friday Mexican president Andre Manuel Lopez oor criticize the Biden Administration for recognizing Venezuelan opposition candidate ad Mundo Gonzalez's President elect we make a respectful appeal to all governments to ensure that there is no interventionism no government is authorized it is not legal it is not legitimate to issue a ruling giving Victory or loss to a candidate From Another Country what is that there is no world government this all comes as the UN refugee agency estimates more than 7.7 million people have been forced to leave Venezuela since 2014 as sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union have devastated venez uh Venezuela's economy for more we're joined by two guests in karakus Edgardo Lander is with us he is a sociologist um where he is part of the citizens platform in defense of the Constitution part of a Latin American network of activists and academics called ecosocial and Intercultural pact of the South and in Albany New York we're joined by Nina Faria a legal historian at Albany law school she's the co-founder of the international people's tribunal on us imperialism and sanctions she just returned from karakus where she volunteered with the national lawyers Guild as an election Observer we welcome you both to democracy now let's begin in karakus Edgardo Lander if you can explain what you think took place good morning Amy thanks for the invitation and the opportunity to talk to you and your audience uh there is no doubt that Maduro was overwhelmingly defeated by the elections the electoral system in Venezuela it's the technical part of the system is probably one of the best in the world there's hardly any possibility of interference with the result at the technical level but there are many mechanisms incorporated into the system including paper ballots that are printed and acts that are registered and signed by the witnesses at each voting booth that can be compared with the results presented by the totals of the Electoral Council all the steps that secure the system that are checks established in the system were completely thrown out by the Electoral Council they published a madeup the data so-called final results they declared Maduro president before they had even finished counting there were more than almost 3 million votes that hadn't been counted by the time they declared and it is a fact that the wood businesses at the voting booth have copies of what actually happened at each voting booth and it's clear that this result that this papers show that there was an overwhelming result I directly know of several centers in that had been radically chavistas up to some short time ago where the results were against the government this is really representative of senten of a tendency where even the most chavista centers in the country voted against Maduro so there's no doubt that Maduro lost his elections they Maduro has now decided to ask a Supreme Court to check the whole process again in order to figure out what's going on so let's go to Nina this is we're going to get comment from Nina farne legal historian at Albany law school you're just back from Venezuela you were an observer with the national lawyers Guild if you can talk about what you saw and respond to um uh Edgardo Lander well we thank you for having me on Amy what we witnessed by in large was a free and fair election process which explains why former President Jimmy Carter once called this system the best electoral system in the world we were part of a large International delegation of election monitors that included members of the African Union and the Latin American election experts and we were quarantined with the rest of our delegation in a hotel that was um separate from all the political activities we attended days of trainings about the Venezuelan electoral system about the laws that protect it and then we were taken prior to the elections we were taken to polling stations around the country where we saw the touchscreen voting machines we saw the ballot boxes for the paper ballots we met the directors of each voting Center uh on the day of the election our nlg delegation had the privilege of interviewing voters as they were going in and out of um the voting room and we also interviewed members of each of the parties that were there to monitor the elections the polling stations we also interviewed opposition voters we didn't hear any concerns from any voters or observers every single person that we spoke with said that this is a free and fair process they had faith in the system and in fact what we saw was a ton of energy around each of the stations that we visited people were proud to vote they take that they take they view voting as a pillar of the Venezuelan democracy and of the bolivarian Revolution and your sense of what had happened before the polls showed that um Gonzalez had won or was going to win by a landslide ultimately uh what the Electoral Council announced was that and of course we all know that pollish can be very wrong uh was that um uh Maduro had won by 51% Nina yes so um exit polling is legal in Venezuela because it can it can has the effect of um altering votes um and also a lot of the polling results that were um used in the US media the polling predictions that were used in the US media uh were discredited by Venezuela analysis a trusted news source in Venezuela that has also been critical of the Maduro government um we actually are very concerned by the claim that Gonzalez has won Gonzalez was a diplomat in venez in Venezuelan Diplomat in El Salvador during the Salvadoran death squads he was number two station there he has blood on his hands he has Salvadoran blood on his hands and so the idea that the Venezuelans would support a government a President Who uh executed US foreign policy in El Salvador decades ago uh is shocking to us uh it's up ultimately to the Supreme Court to decide so Edgardo Lander um you have said it's clear that Maduro lost um you are a leading left voice in Venezuela and globally one of the early leaders of the world social Forum um even in the United States when they were demanding that um the ballots be shown the following morning they are not available for example in the United States what happens right after an election in what way were these opposition shown uh ballots um verified but by anyone but the opposition and what do you say uh Edgardo Lander to those fellow leftists um who say uh this is a result of longtime us campaign to unseat Maduro um to uh destabilize his government with um uh crushing sanctions in the first place the demand to have public access to the ballots not some weird demand that somebody made up it's part of the controls that are established in Venezuelan laws according to Venezuelan laws the Electoral Council has to publicly present the ballots at each voting Center and it has absolutely denied to do so so it's absolutely clear that they have presented a total result with no backing whatsoever so the the backing that's expected and it's established by the law is completely absent the ballots that are in the hands of the Gonzalez people are not the only ballots that are available because different candidates and their Witnesses get copies of the ballots at the voting centers and all the ballots that are in the hands of this several other candidates show the same Tendencies they show the tendenc that there was an overwhelming majority of people voting against Maduro I think that this is a test for the left internationally if the left in many places of the world in Latin America and the United States Europe some sectors of the left continue to call the Venezuelan government as a revolutionary leftist government if this repressive author Arian corrupt extractivist government that is destroying the environment and it's in constant violation of Human Rights is defined as slep if this is what's presented as the offer for the future of humanity then it's clear that this left is contributing to increasing the heal of the rightwing and the far rightwing this has ceased to be a leftist government a long time ago the conflict in Venezuela for has not been in this election a conflict between left and right it's a conflict between a repressive government and a whole spread of positions in Venezuelan society that go from far right to left that includes social Democrats that includes Progressive that includes liberals it includes a whole spread of people who want to recover democracy who want to recover the Constitution Venezuela which is completely violated by this increasingly authoritarian government if this result is imposed on the Venezuelan Society this could be the nail on the coffin that will be the end result of this authoritarian tendencies that have been going on for quite some time and establish a truly authoritarian government so it's very important for the left in Venezuela to get as much solidarity from the left internationally in the recognition that this is not us conspirac conspiracy that is not fascism we reject us intervention the United States has no right to decide who won the elections this is an issue for Venezuelans to decide and the United States has been intervening in Venezuela for a long time sanctions have had a dramatic impact on Venezuelan Society the humanitarian crisis and almost 8 million people that have left the country because they see no future are basically the result of us intervention and US sanctions so it's not in any way an support for us position we from the left reject us intervention and insist on the fact that it's not for the United States to decide who won the election but in Venezuela according to the ballots that are in the hands of citizens it's quite clear that there's a violation of the Electoral laws if the basic mechanism established in the Electoral Council for guaranteeing that the results are free that the elections are free is the comparison between the printed ballots and the signed documents at each voting booth with the N with the totals presented by electoral Council this is the main of several mechanisms to guarantee that elections really reflect the results reflect the will of the people if the government refuses to show their results and just makes up some random numbers there's no way that the Venezuelan Society can trust what the results are it's obvious that the government denies the possibility of doing what the law requires it to do which is to present each voting result um Nina Faria we gave refuses to do so it's very we gave Edgard Lander the first word we give you the last uh first of all I want to correct Professor Lander the Venezuelan government according to the laws that we learned about while we were there has 30 days to release the tallies from the day of the election we're not even back 10 days yet second of all it's not up to the international left to decide who the president of Venezuela is it's up to the Venezuelan people and it's difficult for me to trust somebody who is known to have met with the widely discredited figure Juan guo about what the Venezuelan left should or shouldn't do or whether or not the Maduro government is a leftist government the Venezuelan people it looks like based on our perceptions of the process of the election process chose president Maduro but to the extent that there's disagreement about what actually happened the Supreme Court should be allowed to decide not Secretary of State blinkin who came out last week saying Venezuela needs to transition away from Socialism or anybody else it's up to the Venezuelan people Venezuela has been subject to hybrid Warfare which includes election tampering severe sanctions targeted assassinations just this morning uh a a democratic um official was fascinated uh the Venezuelan people have the right to challenge us interference and US imperialism and they get to decide who their president is not the international left not Secretary of State Lincoln no one else