Elections in Venezuela: The Kidnapping of a Nation
By Javier Herrera
HAVANA TIMES – This Sunday, July 28, 2024, the Presidential Elections for the 2025-2031 period took place in Venezuela. Ten presidential candidates were in the running, including the current president, Nicolas Maduro, of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), and Edmundo Gonzalez, representing the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD), an organization that brings together the major opposition parties.
The current Venezuelan elections have been under the watchful eye of the world due to the strong geopolitical implications of the victory of one side or the other. On one hand, they have significant global and regional importance due to their impact on migration and the economic stability of the entire region.
The Venezuelan crisis has caused the largest migratory exodus in the recent history of Latin America, affecting neighboring countries and generating pressure on the United States. The outcome of the elections could change these migratory waves, within which almost eight million Venezuelans have been forced to migrate due to misery or persecution by the regime.
On the other hand, countries like Cuba, Russia, China, and Iran, which have political and economic interests in the region, use Venezuela as a pawn in their game and favor the continuation of the current regime. The United States also has a great interest in Venezuela due to its importance in the global oil trade and the wave of Venezuelan migrants that have settled in the US.
Despite the world’s close observation, the ruling regime has been placing obstacles in the way of opposition candidates since the elections were announced.
Engineer, politician, and professor María Corina Machado, who managed to unite the Venezuelan opposition in the Democratic Unity Platform and who was elected as the presidential candidate in the opposition’s primary elections last October, was prevented by Maduro from participating in these elections or holding public office for 15 years.
To evade the ruling party’s trickery, María Corina chose Professor Corina Yoris as the presidential candidate, but once again, the regime dismissed the candidacy, this time without giving reasons.
Finally, it was possible to register the former diplomat, professor, and writer Edmundo Gonzalez as the opposition candidate. Despite the candidacy being allowed, the obstacles raised to carry out the campaign multiplied enormously. While Nicolas Maduro made use of the media, access was denied to the opposition candidate.
Threats, kidnappings, and arbitrary detentions of security chiefs and other collaborators were also resorted to. Even businesses where the opposition campaign group stopped at some point to eat or lodge during their movement around the country were persecuted and closed. The climax of these aggressions and attacks was an alleged assassination attempt on María Corina by cutting the brake lines at night of the vehicle she was supposed to travel in the following day.
Finally, President Nicolas Maduro, in the height of despotism, threatened the entire nation by publicly stating in a campaign event that if he was not re-elected, Venezuela would be immersed in an unprecedented bloodbath. Access was also denied to international observers such as the European Union, a Spanish parliamentary delegation, and various former presidents and Latin American politicians who even arrived at Caracas airport but were prevented from disembarking or were warned that their flight would not be received because they were not welcome.
Despite the obstacles, the opposition candidate was able to become the bearer of hope for a people submerged in misery and repression, in addition to inheriting the political prestige of his mentor and colleague María Corina. In the last polls before the elections, he held 54% of the vote intention compared to a spurious 28% for the current president, who has seen his prestige and acceptance diminish after more than ten years of economic, social, and migratory crisis.
During the early hours before the elections, the population made long lines in front of voting centers, and on more than one occasion and place, they were urged to withdraw by police aligned with the regime or by Chavista collectives (pro-government motorized and armed paramilitary groups), but the people’s decision was to confront them and claim their right to vote freely.
On election day, various incidents were reported at several voting centers, such as the closure of these centers to prevent the electorate from fulfilling their civic duty and preventing observers and witnesses who were not pro-regime from accessing the premises.
By Sunday, July 28, with the regime’s tricks to rig the elections exhausted, including closing borders to prevent Venezuelans settled in neighboring Colombia from returning to vote, everything seemed to favor the opposition’s aspirations and the people’s hopes. Exit polls raised expectations.
The massive participation of the electorate increased Gonzalez approval rating from 54% to almost 70%. The opposition was already singing victory. The people were celebrating, congratulating, and thanking Maria Corina. Victory was believed to be secured.
After six in the evening, the time when the polling stations closed, the story began to openly twist. While Maria Corina called on the people to stay at the polling stations and for observers to fulfill their function, the latter were expelled from the scrutiny for not being pro-regime, and the gathered people were threatened by masked, armed motorized persons with pistols, assault rifles, and even mortars, firing shots to disperse them. In these unequal encounters between the armed Collectives and the determined people, several citizens were injured, with even one death reported in the state of Tachira.
Despite all this, hopes and calls to defend the popular vote did not cease. Expectations grew and made the opposition believe that victory was confirmed when a Chavista worker at a computing center thought of uploading a selfie to social media, where the monitors reflecting the count in each state showed a clear abysmal difference between Maduro and the opposition.
By eight in the evening, when an official part of the scrutiny was due, the National Electoral Committee (CNE) remained silent. Hiding behind an alleged cyber-attack, it wasn’t until after midnight that the first vote count result was made public. To the surprise of all who expected a civic attitude from the CNE, Nicolas Maduro was immediately declared the winner, according to the verdict, with 51.20% of the votes in his favor, leaving Edmundo Gonzalez with 44.02% of the votes, and the remaining 4.6% distributed among the other eight candidates.
At the time of the announcement, the opposition claimed fraud. The countries closely following the events mostly called for transparency and vote counting. Only Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Russia, China, and Iran hurried to congratulate dictator Maduro and praise the elections while demanding non-interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs. Meanwhile, the regime threatens severe reprisals against the population if protests arise.
These were not elections between the ruling party and the opposition, nor even between Maduro and Gonzalez… they were elections between a despotic regime and its people, between dictatorship and slavery… the people won over tyranny, freedom prevailed over dictatorship. The evidence is there.
Will the people of Venezuela remain idle in the face of dispossession? Will the regime dare to execute its threats if the people go out to claim what rightfully belongs to them? Will the world remain silent in the face of the kidnapping of the nation carried out against the people of Venezuela?
The world continues to watch; this story is just beginning. The people of Venezuela deserve to be free; they demonstrated it at the polls. The blood of the people should never be shed to satisfy the power cravings of a tyrant.