Venezuela’s contested election is far from over

By Juan Pablo Spinetto

Of all the different scenarios in Venezuela’s election on Sunday, we witnessed the most likely one: Nicolás Maduro was announced as the winner of the vote by the country’s electoral authority controlled by the authoritarian president’s close allies.

Shortly past midnight in Caracas, the National Electoral Council said that Maduro got 51 per cent of the vote compared with 44 per cent for rival Edmundo González, despite polls showing the opposition candidate clearly ahead by double-digit margins.

The electoral body didn’t produce the individual tallies from each voting station to support such result after saying it received a “terrorist” attack on its transmission systems. How inconvenient! It also called the result “irreversible” even if 20 per cent of the votes were still uncounted and the difference between both candidates was just seven percentage points.

Equally suspicious, it took them more than six hours to release the count; you would think that a result so unexpectedly favorable to the government would have been published very quickly to squash any malign speculation.

The opposition denounced the result for what it is: a farce that only crowns a process tainted from the beginning, with its main leader María Corina Machado saying that based on the 40 per cent of the tabulated ballots they had managed to secure, Gonzalez was winning 70 per cent of the vote. With both sides claiming victory, the short-term outlook is increased political instability and uncertainty.

Latin America and the countries that want to see a democratic and prosperous Venezuela should get involved fast to help find a path that respects the will of the millions of citizens who braved obstruction and violence to cast their vote.

Maduro was never going to accept defeat, and the idea he would quietly exit the presidential palace was always wishful thinking. At the same time, his strategy can’t be confused with strength or invincibility: It’s a bet consistent with the hegemonic behavior of Chavismo, the socialist movement that has governed Venezuela for more than 25 years, and one that nonetheless contains several risks for the regime.

For a start, the electoral body has to show the tallies proving the result (the CNE pledged to do it the “coming hours”). This is key because at this moment only Venezuela’s most staunch allies (i.e., Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Iran, Russia and China) have congratulated Maduro for his “victory.” And if it’s true that the opposition certified 40 per cent of the votes, that should be enough to prove the numbers don’t add up.

As Chilean President Gabriel Boric rightly said, the results are “difficult to believe,” adding that his country wouldn’t recognize unverifiable outcomes. The US and the European Union expressed similar concerns.

While the silence of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Colombia counterpart Gustavo Petro on Sunday night can be interpreted as tactical concession, it could also be a sign of backdoor diplomatic negotiations. (Colombia's foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, subsequently called for a speedy independent verification and audit.)

Petro (and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the region’s other big leftist leader) are unlikely to come out harshly against Maduro, but Lula vented his frustration with the Venezuelan leader days before the vote. And his foreign affairs adviser Celso Amorim was in Caracas for the vote. Brazil’s position will carry significant weight in this drama, where the already-damaged legitimacy of the regime is shrinking even further.

And then we have Venezuela’s armed forces, which should be now making their own calculations. Machado appealed to the military once again on Sunday night, saying she expected them to enforce the popular vote. Although she said her movement is peaceful, the opposition’s capacity to mobilize protestors if needed shouldn’t be dismissed.

All in all, these are treacherous waters for Chavismo that could lead to renewed sanctions — both personally and on a government level — more isolation and internal disagreement that could upend Maduro’s artificial economic stability. Not for nothing did the bling-encrusted leader call for a “new consensus” within the country in his post-election remarks. And if the 11 years in power of this bus-driver-turned-dictator have taught us anything, it is not to underestimate his survival capacity. The next step in this story will depend on how the government and the opposition play their new hands.

For those still doubting last night’s results, let’s not forget this wasn’t your typical election even before Sunday’s blunders. The regime went to extreme lengths to tilt the balance of the vote in its favor, banning candidates (Machado, most notably,) allowing only a tiny margin of the Venezuelan diaspora to vote abroad, suppressing the presence of observers and even barring the entrance of regional leaders seeking to assess the vote in the country. That’s enough to be considered an unfair election in any democracy.

The spectacle of millions of courageous and hopeful Venezuelans at home and abroad trying to change their country’s fate peacefully should be a source of global inspiration. In this year of elections, it should mobilize democracies to summon the collective ingenuity and resolve needed to defend the primacy of ballots over truncheons and bullets. Venezuela’s democratic neighbors must stand up, and the rest of the free world must support them.