Venezuela opposition candidate asks Maduro to 'step aside'

CARACAS

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who has claimed he defeated Nicolas Maduro in last month's election, said on Aug. 19 he was ready to negotiate a transition,- and asked the incumbent to "step aside."

"Mr. Nicolas Maduro, respect what all Venezuelans have decided... You and your government should step aside... I am ready for dialogue," Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat, said in a video message posted on social media.

"Every day that you hinder the democratic transition, Venezuelans suffer from a country in crisis, and without freedom. Clinging to power only makes the suffering of our people worse. Our time has come."

Since the contested election, Gonzalez Urrutia and fellow opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running herself, have been in hiding as prosecutors have opened an investigation against both of them.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab threatened to formally charge them on Aug. 19.

Gonzalez Urrutia has not been seen publicly in weeks, while Machado appeared at an opposition rally in Caracas on Aug. 17.

The protest was the latest since the July election, in which Maduro claimed a third, six-year term.

The country's CNE electoral council declared Maduro the victor within hours of polls closing, giving him 52 percent of ballots cast, and ratified the vote in early August. It did not provide a detailed breakdown.

The opposition says its own tally of polling-station-level results showed Gonzalez Urrutia, 74, had won more than two-thirds of the vote.

The CNE claimed to have been the victim of a cyberattack on election night, but the opposition and third-party election observers such as the Carter Center have said there is no evidence such an event occurred.