Brazil's president on Thursday urged Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to consider holding new elections after international condemnation of last month's vote the opposition says the strongman stole. If Maduro "is sensible," said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, "he could try to appeal to the people of Venezuela, perhaps even organize elections." Lula told a Brazilian radio station that prior to a new election, Maduro should "establish criteria for participation of all candidates" and "allow observers from all over the world.
" Venezuela's CNE electoral council proclaimed Maduro the winner of a third, six-year term with 52 percent of votes cast in a July 28 poll without providing a detailed breakdown of the results. The opposition says it has access to 80 percent of polling-station-level results which show that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat, defeated Maduro by a wide margin. Gonzalez Urrutia and wildly popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running by Maduro-friendly state institutions, have been in hiding since the president accused them of seeking to foment a "coup d'etat" and demanded they be jailed.
Anti-Maduro protests have claimed 25 lives so far, with dozens injured and more than 2,400 arrested. Maduro's victory claim has been rejected by the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries. Lula said Wednesday he had spoken to his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro by telephone a.