Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) declared socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro the “winner” of Sunday’s sham presidential election, granting him a six-year term.
The “results” heavily contradict exit polls and preliminary poll tallies that suggested an overwhelming victory for Venezuelan opposition candidate Edmundo González — the only legitimate opposition candidate allowed to be on the ballot — against the ruling dictator. The Venezuelan opposition immediately contested the “official” results, claiming that González defeated Maduro by a roughly 40-percent vote difference.
Unlike previous sham elections in Venezuela, which featured extremely low voter turnouts, Sunday saw millions of Venezuelans head to the polls in numbers described by opposition leader figure María Corina Machado as “amazing.” Eyewitnesses reported large queues in voting centers across the country throughout the day. Although Machado was the opposition’s front-running candidate, the Maduro regime banned her from running for any public office in response to her support for international human rights sanctions against the socialists.
While footage showed high voter turnouts in Venezuela’s voting centers, only 69,000 Venezuelans migrants out of the millions of Venezuelans who fled from socialism were able to vote on Sunday as a result of the Maduro regime imposing difficult and often impossible to comply with requirements on expatriates to update their voter registry information.
Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro celebrate after electoral authorities declared him the winner of the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, July 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Cristian Hernandez)
Several reports of pro-Maduro regime thugs intimidating voters surfaced on social media throughout the day. Most notably, members of the socialist colectivo gangs assaulted a voting center located in the state of Táchira during the Sunday evening vote tallying process, resulting in the death of 40-year-old Julio Valerio García and several injured.
Exit polls and footage published on social media showed that González had obtained overwhelming victories against Maduro in each voting center as it finished tallying its votes, leading to early celebrations from the Venezuelan electorate. However, the head of CNE Elvis Amoroso addressed the country in the early midnight hours of Monday to declare Maduro the “winner” of the sham election with 51.2 percent of the vote against González’s 44.2 percent.
Amoroso claimed that the announcement of the “results” had to be delayed due to regime-controlled electoral authorities having to “resolve an aggression against the data transmission system that adversely delayed the transmission of the results,” without providing further details.
Machado and González addressed the nation shortly after CNE published its “results.” Machado claimed that the Venezuelan opposition candidate had won in all states and described the results claimed by CNE as “not just another fraud. This is disregarding and violating popular sovereignty.”
“We won and everyone knows it,” Machado said. “We want to tell all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is Edmundo González Urrutia. González Urrutia obtained 70 percent of the votes and Nicolás Maduro 30 percent. This is the truth.”
“We have 40 percent of the tally sheets. We do not know where CNE got the others from. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia obtained 70% of the votes, and Maduro 30%, it is the election with the highest participation in history,” she continued. “The regime knows what happened and what it intends to do, the whole international community knows it, even those who were once allies.”
Maduro immediately celebrated his “victory,” claiming there will be “peace, stability, and justice” in Venezuela. Last week, the socialist dictator threatened a “bloodbath” if he did not “win” on Sunday.
“I want peace, love and understanding. And I have the power you have given me and the civil-military-police union to promote the most powerful and great national dialogue of economic, social, cultural, political, moral and spiritual understanding,” Maduro said.
Maduro also claimed that the Venezuelan electoral system suffered a “hacking” attempt that allegedly sought to prevent the publication of his “victory” results.
“Venezuela suffered an attack, a massive hacking. We already know which country it comes from, a massive attack on the CNE transmission system because the demons and the demons did not want it to be totalized and the result to be given today,” Maduro said, without providing further details or evidence that substantiated his claims.
Maduro’s “victory” was heavily questioned by several regional leaders and by U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who said he had “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
#BREAKING: Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Maduro announced election victory:
“We have serious concerns that the results announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people… the international community is watching this very closely and will respond… pic.twitter.com/mhniy80mFM
— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) July 29, 2024
Blinken repeatedly promoted the idea of having Maduro hold a “free and fair” election in Venezuela for years, apparently trusting the CNE to administer one.
Shortly before the CNE proclaimed Maduro’s “victory,” Argentine President Javier Milei announced in a social media post that Argentina would not recognize another fraud and hoped that the Venezuelan Armed Forces “will defend democracy and the popular will this time.”
“Dictator Maduro, out! Venezuelans chose to end the communist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro. The data announce a crushing victory for the opposition and the world is waiting for it to recognize defeat after years of socialism, misery, decadence and death,” Milei’s message read.
DICTADOR MADURO, AFUERA!!!
Los venezolanos eligieron terminar con la dictadura comunista de Nicolás Maduro. Los datos anuncian una victoria aplastante de la oposición y el mundo aguarda que reconozca la derrota luego de años de socialismo, miseria, decadencia y muerte.…
— Javier Milei (@JMilei) July 29, 2024
Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino urged Maduro to acknowledge his defeat, stating that the difference in votes against the ruling socialists was overwhelming.
“They lost in every state by more than 35 percent,” Mondino said. “There is no fraud or violence that hides reality.”
Chilean far-left President Gabriel Boric, who has regularly been critical of Maduro’s human rights abuses, stressed that the results published by the Maduro regime are “difficult to believe” and announced that Chile will not recognize any result that is “not verifiable.”
President of Costa Rica Rodrigo Chaves Robles described the results as “fraudulent” in a statement and asserted that “the democratic governments of the continent and international organizations to ensure that the sacred will of the Venezuelan people is respected.”
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo expressed that he had received CNE’s results “with doubts.”
“For this reason, the reports of the electoral observation missions are essential, which today, more than ever, must defend the vote of Venezuelans,” Arévalo said.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Javier González-Olaechea condemned the Maduro regime’s fraud attempt and announced that it had summoned the Venezuelan ambassador to Lima.
Other regional leftist leaders close to Maduro, such as Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have not publicly commented on Maduro’s “victory” at press time.
Maduro was congratulated by the allied regimes of Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, China, Russia, and Iran.