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US President Joe Biden called exiled Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmund Gonzalez the “real winner” of the country’s presidential election last July after meeting him at the White House.
In the post in social networksBiden said Venezuela deserves a “peaceful transfer of power.”
Gonzalez fled to Spain in September following the upheaval following Venezuela’s election in which incumbent President Nicolás Maduro declared victory – something contested by González and many parts of the international community.
Caracas reacted to the meeting with fury, calling it “grotesque” and accusing Biden of supporting a violent anti-democratic project, according to Reuters.
Maduro is due to be re-inaugurated on Friday.
Gonzalez, now in exile in Spain, says the presidential election in July was rigged and says he himself won it.
The opposition has called for mass protests this week and Maduro’s government is offering a $100,000 (£81,000) reward for information leading to Gonzalez’s arrest.
The vote counts – a detailed official breakdown of the votes from each polling station – have been at the heart of the dispute over who won the election.
The government’s National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner, but could not provide tallies to back up its claim.
The opposition, which has collected and published more than 80% of the vote counts with the help of accredited election witnesses, says they prove that Gonzalez was a landslide victory.
UN Human Rights Committee Venezuela ordered in December “refrain from destroying” voting records in the July elections.
