UN strongly criticizes Venezuela elections

The four-person group, sent on behalf of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, had been in Caracas for more than a month ahead of the July 28 election. It was one of the few independent outside observers invited by President Nicolás Maduro and his government.

The UN group praised the logistical conduct of the elections, but strongly criticized the electoral commission and its decision to declare Maduro the winner, without providing detailed election results from the country's 30,000 polling stations.

“negative impact on confidence”

According to the organization, this approach is unprecedented in modern democratic elections.

“It had a negative impact on confidence in the results announced by the National Electoral Commission among a large portion of the Venezuelan electorate,” the UN experts said in a statement.

The opposition minutes are considered real.

The criticism is similar to that previously made by another independent election monitor, the US-based Carter Center, which previously said it could not verify the NEC's results.

Venezuela's opposition said records collected directly from more than 80 percent of polling stations show its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, has already won a landslide victory.

The UN panel of experts did not go so far as to verify the opposition's claims that González Urrutia won, but they say the minutes released by the opposition appear to be authentic.