Venezuelan Attorney General says opposition leader Machado involved in effort to attack electoral college

The Venezuelan government's Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, accused top opposition leader María Corina Machado on Monday of being involved in an attempted attack against the country's electoral council with the goal of tampering with the presidential elections' results.

Speaking in a press conference, the government official said a team is "gathering evidence to convict as a result of these actions, which sought to alter the results." He added that the alleged attack was perpetrated from "North Macedonia" and that such crimes can have sentences ranging from three to six years in prison. Saab also mentioned exiled opposition leader Leopoldo López and political activist Lester Toledo as other figures involved in the attempt.

The government-friendly electoral council claimed that electoral results were delayed for several hours on Sunday as a result of a cyber-attack. In contrast, the opposition has contested the results and claimed tallying certificates stopped arriving after reaching 30% of the total.

The electoral council's website continues to be down, with the only results being announced by body chief Elvis Amoroso in the early hours of Monday. He said that, with 80% of the votes tallied, President Nicolás Maduro had an "irreversible lead" of over 52% of the vote, compared to opposition candidate's Edmundo González Urrutia's 44.2%.

The Maduro government has historically accused opposition leaders of engaging in criminal behavior, imprisoning many and driving others into exile. Leopoldo López is among the latter, having fled to Madrid in 2020 after being imprisoned for leading protests against the government in 2014.

Juan Guaidó, who declared himself interim president after the opposition and dozens of countries rejected to recognize the results of the 2019 presidential elections, also tainted by fraud accusations, left for the U.S. in 2023 after years of living under the threat of arrest.

The country remains mired in uncertainty as several countries, including regional power brokers like Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, have not recognized the results. Several others have outright rejected them and called for a special meeting of the Organization of American States' to analyze the situation.

The electoral council, in the meantime, has declared Maduro the country's president-elect.