The political landscape in Venezuela has been thrown into chaos following the recent presidential election.
The opposition has declared victory, setting up a dramatic confrontation with the government, which earlier proclaimed President Nicolás Maduro as the winner.
In his first public remarks, opposition candidate Edmundo González asserted, “The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened.
” According to opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the margin of González’s victory was “overwhelming,” based on voting tallies received from campaign representatives at approximately 40% of ballot boxes nationwide.
The National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by Maduro loyalists, announced that Maduro had secured 51% of the vote compared to 44% for González.
However, the council did not release the tallies from each of the 30,000 polling booths across the country, promising only to do so in the “coming hours.”
This delay has hampered efforts to verify the results independently.
International responses have been reserved, with foreign leaders refraining from recognizing the election results.
Gabriel Boric, Chile’s leftist leader, remarked, “The Maduro regime must realize that the results it announced are hard to trust.
We will not recognize any outcome that cannot be verified.” Similarly, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced “serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or votes of the Venezuelan people” during a speech in Tokyo.
The six-hour delay in announcing the results after the polls were supposed to close indicated internal government debates on how to proceed after Maduro’s opponents had almost claimed victory earlier in the evening.
When Maduro eventually came out to celebrate the results, he accused unidentified foreign adversaries of attempting to hack the voting system.
He remarked, “This is not the first instance of attempts to disrupt the peace of our republic,” although he did not present any evidence to substantiate his allegation, he vowed to deliver “justice” to those who incite violence in Venezuela.
Opposition representatives asserted that the tallies they collected from campaign representatives at polling stations showed González decisively leading over Maduro.
Meanwhile, the head of the electoral council promised to release the official voting acts shortly.
Maduro celebrated the result with a few hundred supporters at the presidential palace, seeking a third term in office.
He faced his toughest challenge yet from an unlikely opponent in González, a retired diplomat who was relatively unknown to voters before being chosen in April as a last-minute stand-in for opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado.
Earlier, opposition leaders celebrated both online and outside a few voting centers, asserting what they believed was a landslide victory for González.
Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee, expressed her joy, saying, “I’m so happy,” as an opposition campaign representative announced results showing González more than doubling Maduro’s vote count. The announcement prompted dozens of nearby individuals to spontaneously sing the national anthem.
Fernández, with tears in her eyes, said, “This is the beginning of a new Venezuela. We are all weary of this burden.”
Voters began lining up at some voting centers across the country before dawn on Sunday, sharing water, coffee, and snacks as they waited for several hours.
The election’s outcome will have significant repercussions throughout the Americas.
Both government opponents and supporters have signalled their interest in joining the exodus of 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left their homes for opportunities abroad should Maduro win another six-year term.
The election was scheduled to coincide with what would have been the 70th birthday of former President Hugo Chávez, the revered leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013.
Chávez left his Bolivarian revolution in Maduro’s hands. However, Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for crushing wages, spurring hunger, crippling the oil industry, and separating families due to migration.
The opposition managed to unite behind a single candidate after years of intraparty divisions and election boycotts that undermined their efforts to unseat the ruling party.
Machado was blocked by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court from running for any office for 15 years.
A former lawmaker, she won over 90% of the vote in the opposition’s October primary. After being blocked from joining the presidential race, she chose a college professor as her substitute on the ballot.
When the National Electoral Council also barred her from registering, González, a political newcomer, was chosen.
Sunday’s ballot also featured eight other candidates challenging Maduro, but only González posed a significant threat to his rule.
After voting, Maduro stated he would recognize the election result and urged all other candidates to publicly declare that they would do the same.
“No one is going to create chaos in Venezuela,” he said. “I recognize and will recognize the electoral referee, the official announcements and I will make sure they are recognized.”
Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy, has entered a free fall since Maduro took the helm.
Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages, and hyperinflation soaring past 130,000% led first to social unrest and then mass emigration.
Economic sanctions from the U.S. aimed at forcing Maduro from power after his 2018 reelection — condemned as illegitimate by the U.S. and dozens of other countries — have only deepened the crisis.
Maduro’s pitch to voters this election was one of economic security, which he promoted with stories of entrepreneurship and references to a stable currency exchange and lower inflation rates.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts the economy will grow 4% this year — one of the fastest in Latin America — after having shrunk 71% from 2012 to 2020.
However, most Venezuelans have not seen any improvement in their quality of life. Many earn under $200 a month, which makes it challenging for families to afford essential items. Some work second and third jobs.
A basket of basic staples sufficient to feed a family of four for a month costs an estimated $385.
The opposition has tried to capitalize on the vast inequalities arising from the crisis, during which Venezuelans abandoned their country’s currency, the bolivar, for the U.S. dollar.
González and Machado focused much of their campaigning on Venezuela’s vast hinterland, where the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years didn’t materialize.
They promised a government that would create sufficient jobs to attract Venezuelans living abroad to return home and reunite with their families.
