Tensions rise in the wake of Venezuela’s disputed election and humanitarian crackdown
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Eneas De Troya/Flickr.
A disputed election marred by allegations of repression and fraud has paralysed Venezuela and thrown the region into turmoil.
In July, Venezuelans took to the polls as President Nicolás Maduro sought a third term in office. Exit polls predicted a landslide victory for the opposition, but mere hours after voting stations closed, the country’s electoral authority – the National Electoral Council (CNE) – said Maduro had secured 51 per cent of the vote, ahead of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who received 44 per cent.
Within 48 hours the opposition disputed the result, having gathered more than 80 per cent of the voting tally sheets from polling stations. These indicated that Gonzalez had secured 67 per cent of the vote, with Maduro receiving just over 30 per cent. There have been growing calls for the CNE, which is controlled by the government, to release detailed data from polling stations. It has so far failed to do so, with Maduro claiming in early August that the data will be published but hadn’t been yet because the CNE website had been hacked.
Maduro has asked Venezuela’s Supreme Court to conduct an audit of the election result. The move has been slammed by the international community, which says the Court is too closely aligned to the government. ‘It’s a joke,’ says one lawyer based in Caracas, who didn’t want to be named for security reasons. ‘Maduro is checking his own lies.’
International human rights groups have called for an independent verification process to confirm the result. However, that prospect seems distinctly unlikely. The Venezuelan authorities only allowed a handful of independent international bodies into the country to observe voting in the first place.
The international community cannot accept Maduro’s re-election without serious independent verification of the election results
Luz Nagle
Co-Vice Chair, IBA Human Rights Law Committee
The assessment of those that were allowed in has been overwhelmingly negative. The US-based Carter Center said the process failed to ‘meet international standards of electoral integrity’ and could not ‘be considered democratic’. A four-person UN panel said the vote ‘fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures that are essential to holding credible elections’. The CNE rejects these claims.
The result follows an intense crackdown by the government on civil society and political opposition, with government critics jailed and opposition leader María Corina Machado barred from running for office. The government also placed stringent restrictions on Venezuelans voting abroad, denying millions the right to vote. In April, the US reimposed oil sanctions on Venezuela, saying Maduro’s government had ‘fallen short’ on its commitment to hold a free and fair election.
There were reports of voting irregularities throughout the campaign and on election day, including last-minute changes to polling station locations. After the vote, security forces reportedly targeted opposition activists contesting the result. More than 1,500 people were detained in these clashes, according to local human rights organisation Foro Penal. At least 24 people were killed.
Nationwide demonstrations have since taken place, with protestors demanding that Maduro concede.
This isn’t the first time a presidential election has been widely disputed in Venezuela. In 2019, amid allegations that Maduro’s re-election was a sham, the majority of the international community recognised opposition candidate Juan Guaidó as the country’s president.
Anne Ramberg, Co-Chair of the IBA’s Human Rights Institute Council, says the current situation illustrates the continuation of democratic backsliding in the country. ‘What has taken place in Venezuela [for] many years is a tragedy for democracy, the rule of law and consequently for human rights,’ she says. ‘The rule of law in Venezuela has turned into the rule of the jungle.’
It’s the extent of the electoral fraud that sets this election apart, says Tamara Taraciuk Broner, Director of the Peter D Bell Rule of Law Program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a non-governmental organisation focused on fostering democratic governance, prosperity and social equity in Latin America and the Caribbean. ‘The fraud is very blatant and there’s not even a guise of pretending to keep a democratic façade,’ she says.
‘For the first time we have a near international consensus that the scales have fallen from the world’s eyes that this is a dictatorship that will steal elections and round up and repress people,’ says Christopher Sabatini, Senior Research Fellow for Latin America, US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House.
The Caracas-based lawyer tells Global Insight that the police have created a climate of fear on the streets. ‘It’s horrible, I don’t know how many people are in jail now,’ he says. ‘If you decide to go out to protest you definitely will be at risk.’
There’s been widespread international condemnation of the violence. The International Criminal Court, which opened an office in Caracas in April, said it was ‘actively monitoring’ events and had ‘received multiple reports of instances of violence and other allegations’ since the election.
The government’s continued failure to provide verified voting tallies has created a predicament for Latin American countries that have traditionally supported Maduro. Some, such as Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have been muted in their response, rejecting the allegation that electoral fraud has taken place, but nonetheless calling on the CNE to provide evidence of the results.
Brazil and Colombia’s leaders have called on the Venezuelan authorities to hold fresh elections or form a coalition government to end the political deadlock. Both Maduro and the opposition have rejected these proposals.
The US and the EU have both refused to recognise the result and Sabatini believes it won’t be long before we see foreign governments impose some ‘very targeted, carefully considered sanctions’ to send a message to Maduro’s government about the consequences of the ongoing repression. As investor sentiment plummets, lawyers in the country report that they have already received calls from clients to place existing projects on hold.
Luz Nagle, Co-Vice Chair of the IBA Human Rights Law Committee and emeritus professor at Stetson University College of Law, Florida, believes more should be done to challenge the result. ‘The international community cannot accept Maduro’s re-election without serious independent verification of the election results,’ she says. ‘The US, Europe, the UN, and the Organization of American States need to have a united message of rejection, condemnation and action.’
Taraciuk Broner, who was born in Venezuela, says the coming days will be crucial for the country’s future. ‘Venezuela is at a juncture right now,’ she says. ‘It can become a Nicaragua or a North Korea in South America. At first glance, it seems that that’s where they are going. The truth is that no one benefits from that other than Maduro and his cronies.’