Brazil and Colombia withhold electoral observers for Venezuela after Maduro criticizes their voting systems

Both Brazil and Colombia cancelled sending electoral observers for the presidential elections in Venezuela on Wednesday, after dictator Nicolás Maduro criticized the reliability of the electoral systems of those countries.

“Given the false statements against the Brazilian electronic voting boxes, which, contrary to what the Venezuelan authorities claim, are auditable and secure, the Superior Electoral Court will not send technicians,” reported the Superior Electoral Court of Brazil (TSE) in a release.

For its part, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also said that the government delegation that was scheduled to accompany the elections next Sunday, July 28, will not travel to Venezuela.

Maduro said Tuesday that the electoral systems of Brazil, the United States and Colombia are not verifiable, and that Venezuela's electoral system is “the best in the world.”

“In Brazil not a single ID is verified,” said the dictator, ensuring that in Venezuela “54% of the ballot boxes are verified in real time.”

“Where else in the world do they do that? In United States? The electoral system is auditable. In Brazil? They do not audit even one record. In Colombia? They do not audit even one record,” he asserted.

Tension has increased between Brazil and Venezuela due to the presidential elections next Sunday.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, considered one of the South American leaders closest to the Maduro regime, confessed this Monday to being “scared” by the comments of Maduro, who said last week that, if he lost the presidential elections, he would have a “bloodbath” and a “civil war” in his country.

Lula affirmed that, in democracy, “he who loses gets a bath of votes, not a bath of blood” and that “Maduro has to learn that when you win, you stay; and when he loses he leaves and prepares for other elections.”

This change in decision regarding the sending of electoral observers adds to that of former Argentine President Alberto Fernández, who denounced on Wednesday that he will not travel to observe the elections at the request of the Maduro regime.

“The Venezuelan national government conveyed to me its desire that I not travel and desist from fulfilling the task that had been entrusted to me by the National Electoral Council,” Fernández published on his official account on the social network X.

“The reason given to me is that, in the opinion of that government, public statements made by me before a national media caused discomfort and raised doubts about my impartiality,” said the president of Argentina, which is why he decided not to go to “not give rise” to being attributed to “wanting to cloud a momentous election day.”