Maduro declared winner of disputed Venezuelan election
The opposition, which had warned of the potential for fraud, was expected to challenge the result.
Presidential candidate Edmundo González, center, and opposition leader María Corina Machado, center right, greet supporters during a rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on Tuesday. (Matias Delacroix/AP)
By Samantha Schmidt, Ana Vanessa Herrero and María Luisa Paúl
Updated July 29, 2024 at 3:09 a.m. EDT|Published July 28, 2024 at 5:08 a.m. EDT
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s electoral council declared the authoritarian socialist the winner of Venezuela’s election Sunday despite partial results and independent exit polling that suggested opposition candidate Edmundo González had captured twice as many votes.
The Venezuelan opposition, which sent thousands of ordinary citizens to monitor voting centers across the country Sunday, swiftly rejected the results and said it had records showing a clear victory by González. The election outcome was immediately challenged by a host of foreign leaders, including U.S. officials.
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. He called on the electoral council to publish the tabulation of votes. “It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently.”
María Corina Machado, the face of the Venezuelan opposition campaign on behalf of González, said the opposition had received 40 percent of official printouts of voting center results, which showed González winning with 70 percent of the votes.
“This is not one more fraud,” Machado said in a news conference at 1 a.m. local time. “This is a gross disregard and violation of popular sovereignty.”
She stopped short of calling for protests but asked election observers and Venezuelan families to remain at voting centers well into the morning until all voting records arrive.
The pro-government electoral council, delivering results shortly after midnight Monday, said Maduro won with 51 percent of the vote to González’s 44 percent.
“I’m Nicolás Maduro, president-elect,” Maduro bellowed to a crowd of supporters outside the Miraflores presidential palace. “And I will defend our democracy, our law and our people.”
The opposition had seen the election as its best chance in more than a decade to unseat the strongman, whom many here blame for this oil-rich country’s economic collapse and the exodus of millions of citizens, hundreds of thousands of them to the United States. Maduro claimed reelection in a 2018 presidential vote that was condemned internationally as fraudulent and prompted a tightening of U.S. sanctions.
In Caracas, the sounds of banging pots and pans echoed across buildings as soon as the results were announced — the sound of protest in Venezuela.
“Maduro has a huge problem on his hands. If the government doesn’t actually back up the results with data, Maduro is inviting the biggest loyalty test he’s faced in years,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who is focused on Venezuela. “This doesn’t end here. Maduro has to convince the ruling elite that he can keep things under control, but both he and the military know that he can’t govern a country in flames.”
Latin American leaders, including some leftists with friendly ties to Maduro, cast doubt on the results. In a post on social media, Colombia’s foreign minister called for an independent verification and audit of the vote count “as soon as possible.”
As votes were being counted, opposition leaders denounced what they said was a government order to voting-center workers to refuse to hand over printouts of voting results, which are used to corroborate the machine count, to opposition poll watchers.
Delsa Solórzano, an opposition electoral council observer, decried a “concerning, widespread pattern.” Multiple voting centers had removed opposition witnesses, she said, and refused to transmit the results in the printouts.
Elvis Amoroso, president of Venezuela’s electoral council, mentioned delays in transmitting results, and said he asked prosecutors to launch an investigation.
Exit polling released after voting centers began to close Sunday evening showed González taking 65 percent of the vote, more than doubling Maduro’s 31 percent, according to Somerville, N.J.-based Edison Research.
“Our fight continues, and we will not rest until the will of the people is respected,” González said in a news conference.
As night fell, violence broke out at some polling centers. When opposition supporters at the Liceo Andrés Bello in Caracas complained of being denied access to the vote count, a colectivo — a gang of at least 150 Maduro supporters on motorbikes — arrived shouting pro-government chants.
A Washington Post reporter saw the men, hooded and wearing black, begin to punch and kick those outside the polling center, injuring multiple people. “Viva Nicolás,” they shouted.
Leiner González, caught in the middle, was beaten, and his shirt was ripped.
“Please, we need change in Venezuela,” the first-time voter, 25, said, “so that there is no more violence in our beloved country from a group of criminals. We demand peace, freedom and truth. Please, we want a transition.”
In the run-up to the vote Sunday, the government barred Machado, Venezuela’s most popular politician, from running, arrested campaign workers and blocked access to state media.
Sunday saw reports of blocked access at voting centers, delays and some violence. In Maturín, a state capital about 350 miles east of Caracas, local opposition leaders said a voting center coordinator and her mother were demanding access for opposition poll watchers when members of a colectivo rode up and shot the mother in the leg.
Voting centers were scheduled to open 6 a.m. Sunday, but at a school in the Chacao neighborhood of Caracas, a group of 18 people arrived three hours early. They would wait for more than six hours, amid delays opening some voting tables.
By 9 a.m., some of the hundreds of people began to chant: “We want to vote!” Esther Pérez Villegas, whose husband was among those waiting, stepped in to help organize the lines. “Anxiety is high, very high, because of all of the uncertainty we feel,” she said.
Noemi Tovar, 61, had been in line since 3 a.m. “If I have to wait all day, I’ll wait all day,” she said.
“We’ve made lines here for many things — for food, for gasoline,” said Martha Salas, 62. “This is for so much more — for a vote.”
Edison Research, which interviewed more than 6,800 voters at 100 locations, said González outpolled Maduro among men and women, rural, suburban and urban voters, and every age group.
“Our exit poll projects a resounding victory for Edmundo González,” executive vice president Rob Farbman said. “The opposition candidate had broad support across nearly all demographic backgrounds.”
In long lines at voting centers across Caracas, voters said they hadn’t seen such large crowds in an election in many years. The opposition described the turnout Sunday as “historic.”
“I haven’t seen this kind of voter intention since Chávez,” said Vladimir Ramos, a 60-year-old engineer waiting in line. Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, founded Venezuela’s socialist state in 1999 and led it until his death in 2013.
“I think people are no longer afraid,” said Natalie Moreno, 47.
By 12:40 p.m., Maduro addressed the nation to announce the activation of Operation Remate — a word meaning “finish it off” — a government-led effort to rally supporters to the polls. Maduro campaign staff and supporters called people to pressure them to vote and offer food and supplies.
“Let’s mobilize ourselves with force,” Maduro said in a message aired by state television. “Let’s vote with strength as was planned, and with the force of the” social programs.
The government aid was flowing in the rural eastern state of Delta Amacuro. In an Indigenous community there, people were being offered bags of food in exchange of support, said Yoxsamar Jiménez, a poll watcher for the opposition.
“But that’s normal here,” she said. More concerning, she said: Poll watchers were not allowed inside, and the center’s coordinator hit Jiménez.
“To avoid violence, we couldn’t do anything so we had to leave the table,” Jiménez said. “The table is alone, and they’re doing whatever they want in that center.”
González, a former diplomat, was unknown to most Venezuelans just months ago. But as the election loomed, polls predicted he could beat Maduro by double digits.
He ran as a stand-in for longtime Maduro critic Machado, the “Iron Lady” who draws tens of thousands of Venezuelans to her near-messianic campaign caravans — and has been disqualified from running by Maduro’s supreme court.
Her campaign focused on a simple message: Vote for us, and your loved ones can come home.
“The central theme is family, in the sense that this could be the last opportunity to reunite our families,” she told The Post. “This is not just an electoral campaign. This is a redemption movement, for liberation.”
Maduro’s campaign portrayed the opposition as an extreme, right-wing threat that would bring instability.
Some voters in Caracas seemed to agree. Hector Trujillo, a 79-year-old retired architect, said he was voting for “peace” and the continued improvement of the economy. He blamed U.S. sanctions for the country’s troubles. He feared the opposition would “eliminate everything,” including the country’s welfare benefits.
Ana Rosas, 26, voted Sunday for the first time in her life. Rosas, who now lives in El Salvador, is among the millions of Venezuelans dispersed across the world — and among the scores who returned home to vote.
“I have goose bumps,” she said. “I still can’t believe I’m able to vote. I hope it makes a difference.”
In Miami, dozens of Venezuelans, unable to vote from abroad, gathered at the Dolphin Mall to watch coverage of the election. Many wore shirts of red, yellow and blue, the colors of the Venezuelan flag, that read “Venezuela Libre.”
“God willing, today the country will be free,” said Lennyn Padilla, 47, tears in his eyes. “I’m emotional because when I speak about it my throat closes up. It makes me so sad.”
Victor Manuel Morina Parra, a 59-year-old bus driver in Caracas, said he has noticed discontent among his passengers. He moved from his farm in the countryside to the Catia neighborhood of the capital, he said, because his rural town was “in a state of total abandonment.”
“We no longer have help from the government. There’s no fuel, the electricity goes out every eight hours,” he said. “That’s why we want change. For our children, for our grandchildren.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... -gonzalez/
