Maduro must go!

Just when many Americans thought they could take a break from electioneering and focus on the Olympic spirit, they were surprised to see images of massive pro-democracy rallies disputing Venezuela’s recent corrupt election. What is going on?

In sum, this was perhaps the most consequential election in South America this year. Indeed, Venezuela may well be the second most important election in 2024 for the entire Western Hemisphere and one that is directly tied to U.S. national security and political interests.

Venezuela was once the fourth-richest country in the world and for many years was among the top 10 oil exporters to the United States. It was also one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. But in the past two and a half decades, it has been plundered by the hard-line socialist presidencies of Hugo Chávez and his hand-picked successor, Nicolás Maduro.

To give you a sense of just how corrupt and derelict the last quarter century of socialist rule has been, here are two data points.

First, Venezuela’s notorious El Helicoide prison, one of the largest correctional complexes in the Western Hemisphere, was created as a sprawling, luxury shopping mall and convention center. It was no longer needed as a commercial venture when it could best be used to house Maduro’s legions of detractors, political enemies, and other freedom-loving citizens.

Second, Venezuela, which by some estimates holds the largest petroleum reserves in the world, has become a net importer of petroleum. It cannot even meet its own people’s needs as it decimated its energy sector by inefficient bureaucracy, corruption, and poor management.

Sunday’s election is seen as a high-stakes drama in Venezuela and for the entire region. In the previous presidential election in 2018, Maduro used the threat of force to bar the winner from taking office. A new special report on electoral corruption documents how the run-up to the 2024 election has been marked by duplicity, chicanery, and bullying as opposition candidates, one after the other, were disbarred from running for office. As reported on The World and Everything in It on Tuesday, the opposition coalesced around the dynamic and courageous María Corina Machado, who won 93 percent of the opposition votes in the presidential primary. But Maduro illicitly barred her from running in the general election.

Machado and others then threw their support behind retired diplomat and respected public servant Edmundo González. The wildly popular “María Corina,” as she is known to the people, has been tirelessly campaigning on his behalf for months. Exiled Venezuelans were almost uniformly denied ballots, but the opposition set up alternative voting sites in cities such as Miami and San Diego.

The result: Maduro appeared to have been decisively trounced at the polls on Sunday. The regime claims to have won, 54 to 41 percent, but virtually no one believes this. Chile’s leftist president, Gabriel Boric, stated, “Maduro’s regime must understand that the results are hard to believe. The international community and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency. … From Chile, we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable.”

Venezuela’s democratic opposition estimates that it won by more than 30 percentage points, and its evidence is hard to refute. In Venezuela, citizens vote on paper ballots that are entered into a machine. They then take a paper record of their vote with them. In other words, a post-electoral analysis can be done by exit polling, because election observers can see a written record of how the citizenry voted.

As González told his supporters, “I speak to you with the calmness of the truth. We have in our hands the tally sheets that demonstrate our categorical and mathematically irreversible victory.”

With the Maduro regime declaring victory, sadly but not surprisingly, several Marxist governments, including China, have congratulated him on his phony reelection.

Americans have had a long and good relationship with the Venezuelan people despite the last 25 years of socialist authoritarianism and corruption. We have become a second home to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan refugees who have had to flee oppression.

But Venezuela should be a prosperous democratic country, a leader in our hemisphere. It was the most successful democracy in South America for many years. It could be a vibrant engine of economic growth and development for its people and its neighbors. Instead, Maduro has turned it into a warmonger, threatening to seize one of its neighbor’s oil wealth. Maduro looks the other way at corruption and trafficking. The regime has become a focus of illegal activity, repression, and instability, propped up by military rule.

Every year that this is allowed to persist, Maduro’s regime reinforces a violent political culture that does not respect the rules of a democratic process, the basics of real-world economics, or the fundamental law and protection of private citizens, churches, and businesses. It is time for the countries that are part of the Organization of American States, and, in particular, major players such as Brazil and the United States to demand that Maduro step down. Perhaps there can be what social scientists call a “pacted transition,” whereby Maduro and his cronies can exit the country quietly and be barred from public service ever again. This seems unlikely, but a combination of external political pressure from Washington and elsewhere combined with the massive force of people power just might achieve such an end—an end that would be good for all Venezuelans and their neighbors.