Venezuelan opposition looks for narrowing paths to power

By Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's opposition, which says that it - and not President Nicolas Maduro - won Sunday's presidential election, is scrambling for ways to find a path to power despite significant obstacles.

Opposition leaders say they have access to around 90% of vote tallies - which by law are supposed to be given to witnesses at vote counts - showing their candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won more than twice as many votes as Maduro.

But the OPEC nation's incumbent president has declared victory and denounced the resulting protests around the country as an attempted coup. The electoral council - which the opposition says is allied to Maduro - has backed his claim but not provided a full vote breakdown.

Two opposition sources, who asked to remain anonymous, said that for now its focus is on pressuring the government to release all the tallies. They did not say how they would do that.

Other opposition pathways to power could include a negotiated solution or the hope that the protests will increase foreign pressure on the government.

But all such efforts face long odds, analysts said.

"The challenges are significant," said Oswaldo Ramirez of Caracas firm ORC Consultores. "The opposition must show it has the tallies and send them to other countries as proof."

Even if it managed that, it is unclear what that would achieve. Maduro has for years shrugged off Western disapproval and sanctions and counts on the support of China, Russia, Cuba and other nations aligned against the United States.

Waves of anti-government protests in 2014, 2017 and 2019 led to hundreds of deaths and failed to dislodge Maduro.

Since Monday, protests around the country have resulted in at least 11 deaths. The government has said two members of the security forces also died.

Reuters witnesses in several cities have seen clashes between security forces and opposition protesters, as well as attacks on protesters by ruling party-allied motorcycle riders known as collectives.

Some opposition members hope the widespread marches could test the allegiances of the country's military and police - although both have proven to be mostly loyal to Maduro in the past.

Maria Corina Machado, who was banned from holding office but spearheaded the opposition campaign, and Gonzalez have both called for the military to uphold the results.

But General Vladimir Padrino - Maduro's defense minister who is the only senior military person to speak publicly - has also called the protests a coup attempt and swore to "defeat" it.

The Maduro administration claims to have hosted many opportunities for dialogue, but the opposition says the government only talks to groups who are really Maduro allies.

"There is still a small chance" that the government would consent to negotiations to hash out a transition of power, said Carmen Beatriz Fernandez, of Caracas analyst firm Datastrategia.

But - given that the government has not shared the tallies - it "seems to be taking the worst path for themselves and for the country," she said.

WILL IT PUBLISH THE VOTES?

Venezuela's national council said in the early hours of Monday that Maduro had won a third term with 51% of vote, but it did not provide a ballot box-level count and its website has been down since Sunday.

The opposition, the European Union and countries including the United States, Brazil, and Chile have asked the government to publish voting records from 30,000 ballot boxes nationwide.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden discussed the Venezuelan election by phone on Tuesday and agreed to wait for publication of the vote tallies before taking a position, a Brazilian official said.

Venezuela must release vote tallies to "resolve the dispute" before Maduro's victory was recognized, Lula said.

The response from the international community needs more "forcefulness," exiled opposition lawmaker Dinorah Figuera told Reuters in Madrid.

"Our urgency now is for countries of the world to turn their gaze towards Venezuela and use the institutions they have to generate pressure so that Nicolas Maduro becomes more naked, more exposed in this fraud that he is shamefully displaying," she said.

If the difference between votes for Gonzalez and votes for Maduro was borne out in the full count, said pollster Saul Cabrera of Consultores 21, "it is very hard to hide in the medium term."

(Reporting by Vivian Sequera and Mayela Armas in Caracas, additional reporting by Catherine Macdonald in Madrid, Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by Christian Plumb and Rosalba O'Brien)