Following the Venezuela presidential election, Nicolas Maduro was announced the winner over his opposition Edmundo González Urrutia. This now means Maduro will be stepping into his 3rd term as President. As Maduro is not well liked, there was a lot of hope in this past election that a new president would be elected.
The results of the election have caused some controversy. According to Al Jazeera, the Venezuela electoral authority has declared that Maduro won with 51% of votes. The opposition claims that Gonzalez actually won the popular vote with 70% of votes. Since the official voting tallies have yet to be released, there has been a lot of backlash from Venezuelan citizens as well as other countries.
The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has stated that “the processing of those votes and the announcement of results by the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) were deeply flawed, yielding an announced outcome that does not represent the will of the Venezuelan people.” This reflects a lot of the sentiment that has been felt in Venezuela. Many people know that due to how long Maduro has been in power, he has the ability to control a lot of parts of the government, including the election,
Blinken also stated that “the CNE still has not published disaggregated data or any of the vote tally sheets, despite repeated calls from Venezuelans and the international community to do so.” This has caused the CNE to lose credibility as that should be public information.
Most importantly, Blinken addressed that “it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.” The US believes that the true winner of the election was not Maduro and that he has been corrupt as a leader and especially in this election. The US wants Maduro to accept that Gonzalez won and now begin a peaceful transition of power in the hopes of restoring democracy to Venezuela.
Many other countries have also spoken out on the election. Reuters explains that leaders from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Panama, the EU, Colombia, Spain, Guatemala and other countries have stated that the results of the election need to be verified and until then they cannot claim a winner. Complete transparency with a country’s citizens is crucial in reassuring democracy and a fair election.
The president of Ecuador has stated that “there are politicians trying to cling to power and trying to take peace away from our citizens” and Venezuela is unfortunately falling victim to this.
The president of Argentina has spoken out on the matter by stating that “not even (Maduro) believes the electoral scam he is celebrating” and that the international community needs to fight the fraud that is happening in Venezuela right now.
Similar responses were seen from El Salvador, Uruguay, Peru, and Costa Rica. Although there is a lot of outright support for releasing information about the election and claiming Gonzalez to be the true winner of the election, there have also been some countries that believe Maduro is in the right. Most Latin American countries expressed some sort of concern over the credibility of the results of the election besides Cuba, Honduras, Bolivia, and Nicaragua.
China has also come out in support of Maduro. President Xi Jinping has stated China will “firmly support Venezuela’s efforts to safeguard national sovereignty, national dignity, and social stability.” VOA News explains that China and Venezuela have supported each other in the past with Maduro having always supported China’s standing. They are strategic partners for each other because Venezuela gets access to social control measures via China and Venezuela helps China get a foothold in the Americas.
Russia is in a similar position as China. They have outrightly supported Maduro with President Vladmir Putin saying “I am confident that your activities at the head of state will continue to contribute to their progressive development in all directions. I would like to confirm our readiness to continue our constructive joint work on topical issues on the bilateral and international agenda.” Venezuela is strategic to Russia because they also get a foothold in the western hemisphere through sharing a similar ideology with Venezuela and using that to partner.
Many countries have spoken out on the issue of the election with the majority believing that something fraudulent occurred and others that may have an incentive to support Maduro expressing their full support. The CNE has yet to release the voting records and this is putting Venezuela in a difficult position.
Written by Sirisha Kunamneni
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