(Bloomberg) -- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has gone too far in his declaration that Venezuela’s opposition candidate won last weekend’s election, according to Mexico’s president.
“With all due respect, what the State Department did yesterday was also excessive,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters Friday in Mexico City. “I apologize to Mr. Blinken, but that is not their place, they are overstepping.”
The Biden administration’s top diplomat said late Thursday it is clear to the US that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia defeated authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro in the July 28 vote. Although he stopped short of calling Gonzalez president-elect, Blinken urged Venezuelan parties “to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition.”
AMLO, as Mexico’s president is known, also criticized Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro for questioning the results so soon after they were released. Lopez Obrador said Venezuela will start to review voting records on Friday and underlined that foreign governments shouldn’t intervene in the country.
Although Mexican diplomats worked with their counterparts in Brazil and Colombia to issue a joint statement calling for an impartial verification of the results, AMLO has avoided questioning Maduro’s self-declared victory and has said proof of alleged irregularities must be presented.
Separately Friday, the chief foreign affairs adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said vote tabulations released by Venezuela’s opposition were informal and that his government was unlikely to follow the Biden administration in recognizing a winner until official records are published.
“So far we have no clear vision because the records were not distributed as expected,” Celso Amorim told CNN Brazil. “I find it difficult to think that Brazil will follow the path of the USA.”
--With assistance from Daniel Carvalho.
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