Re-election of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela: why no one believes it

A day after the announcement of Nicolas Maduro’s re-election, the situation is tense in Venezuela. In Caracas, the capital, as in the rest of the country, thousands of Venezuelans demonstrated on Tuesday, July 30, to shout their anger at what they consider to be electoral “fraud.” Clashes with the police and paramilitary militias then broke out. “At least one person was killed in the state of Yaracuy” and “46 people were arrested” according to Alfredo Romero, the director of Foro Penal, an NGO specializing in the defense of political prisoners.

In addition, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado assures that she has the means to “prove” the victory of her candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, while nine Latin American countries (Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay) call for a review of the election results in a joint statement published by the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In America as in the West, no one wants to believe in the re-election of Nicolas Maduro.

Seven million people have fled Venezuela

“If the distrust is so great, it is first of all because Venezuelans voted with their legs by leaving the country in recent years. Around seven million people fled the political and economic crisis that Venezuela is going through,” underlines Jean-Louis Martin, associate researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI). In this context, it seems “difficult to imagine that the population voted overwhelmingly to maintain the power in place.”

As a reminder, this oil-producing country of 28 million inhabitants, long one of the richest in Latin America, is now bled dry, mired in an unprecedented economic and social crisis: collapse of oil production, GDP reduced by 80% in ten years, poverty and totally dilapidated health and education systems… In this quagmire, an additional vice has been gripping Venezuelans since 2019: the sanctions of the United States in an attempt to oust Nicolas Maduro from power since his first contested re-election in 2018. The embargo on gas, oil and gold extracted from Venezuela’s subsoil is undermining the country’s economic health. Its partial lifting had been negotiated in October 2023 in exchange for holding a presidential election in 2024.

But if the outcome of this election creates so much perplexity, among international observers as well as among the population, it is because the re-election of Nicolas Maduro is an electoral surprise, contrary to all the voting intentions measured for weeks. The polls, almost unanimously, predicted a strong victory for his opponent Edmundo Gonzalez. The latter, a discreet 74-year-old diplomat, had had to replace the leader of the opposition, Maria Corina Machado, following the decision of the country’s Supreme Court to declare the liberal candidate ineligible last January. Nicolas Maduro’s government accuses him of “administrative irregularities” and “treason” for his support for American economic sanctions against Venezuela. Yet another example, for many observers, of the silencing of political opposition in the country.

Protests from all political sides

While the vehement protest by Javier Milei, the ultra-liberal president of Argentina, calling Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” was predictable given his ideological hostility to socialism and the Chavista regime – inherited from the military Hugo Chavez, who led the country from 1999 to 2012 – “doubts” now come from all political sides. “Even countries governed by the left, such as Chile, Brazil and Colombia, have requested a recount of the votes,” says Jean-Louis Martin of IFRI. “These statements reflect the lack of credibility of the results and also attest to the fear, for certain neighboring countries, such as Colombia, of seeing additional waves of refugees arriving at their borders.”

If calls for “transparency” are increasing, it is because opacity reigns over this election: failure to publish the minutes attesting to the results in the various polling stations, late announcement of the results on the night of July 28, and above all, the government’s refusal to authorize the arrival of international observers to ensure the smooth running of the elections, as Nicolas Maduro had promised. “Little by little, as he understood, particularly in the polls, that the election was not looking good for him, he banned the arrival of representatives from the European Union or Latin America,” says Jean-Louis Martin.

As he celebrated his third term since 2013, Nicolas Maduro claimed to be “a man of peace and dialogue”. Since then, suspicions of fraud have been looming, the streets are rumbling, and the former bus driver who became Hugo Chavez’s heir apparent and then designated successor is clinging to power relentlessly. Until when?