Ecuador reiterates that it recognizes Edmundo González as president

The government of Ecuador ratified this Thursday its recognition of the standard-bearer of the majority opposition Edmundo González Urrutia as elected president of Venezuela by not accepting as valid and transparent the results presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which declared Nicolás Maduro as the winner for a new six-year term (2025-2031).

The Ecuadorian Executive had already initially recognized González Urrutia as president-elect on August 2 in a statement issued by President Daniel Noboa, but this Thursday he ratified his position, two days after the United States government also considered him the legitimate winner of the elections.

In a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility, the government of Ecuador recalled that “like other members of the international community, it called for the impartial and transparent verification of the electoral results, which has not happened.”

“The actions of the electoral bodies of Venezuela have weakened the principles of the rule of law and have aggravated the persecution and the human rights situation in that country,” said the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry.

The Noboa administration also noted: “A true exercise of democracy requires unconditional respect for the will of the voters, and in that sense, supports Mr. Edmundo González as the legitimate winner of the presidential elections in Venezuela.”

The electoral authorities of Venezuela have not published the minutes of the elections held on July 28 as requested by a large part of the international community, especially after the opposition released a series of minutes that give a large victory to González Urrutia but that the ruling party does not recognize as valid.

González Urrutia, who became the main candidate of the majority opposition after María Corina Machado was disqualified, received asylum in Spain due to the risk of being detained by the Venezuelan authorities for not accepting the controversial CNE resultsThey give victory to Maduro, and whose investiture ceremony is scheduled for January 10.

Ecuador and Venezuela have maintained broken relations at all levels since April, when the Maduro government closed its consulates in Ecuadorian territory in response to the police invasion ordered by Noboa against the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest Jorge Glas, former president of Rafael Correa. (2007-2017), convicted of corruption who had received asylum from the Mexican government when he declared himself politically persecuted.