Unfair election in Venezuela

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 30th of July, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Up first… contested election results in Venezuela

AUDIO: Banging pots and pans.

MAST: That’s the sound of disappointed Venezuelans protesting the election results by banging on pots and pans in Caracas.

Polling data collected by the opposition pointed to a landslide victory for its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez. But when authorities announced the results Sunday night, President Nicholas Maduro claimed victory for a third term.

MADURO: (Speaking in Spanish)

REICHARD: Here Maduro says the electoral system has a high level of confidence and transparency…but many disagree. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Venezuelan authorities to release the vote tallies that would verify who really won.

BLINKEN: The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.

REICHARD: What does the election mean for Venezuela today…and in the coming weeks? Here to talk about it is WORLD’s Latin America associate correspondent Carlos Paez.

Carlos, good morning!

CARLOS PÁEZ, CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Thank you.

REICHARD: Well let’s start with some background. We know Nicholas Maduro has been in power for 11 years now, since 2013 when he became president after the death of Hugo Chavez, the strongman. What has Maduro led Venezuela into since that time?

PÁEZ: Yes, Nicolas Maduro was the former vice president and handpicked successor of Hugo Chavez to continue on the presidency in 2013. He tried to follow the same policies of the Chavista regime implemented earlier, but during his administration, we saw the collapse of the Venezuelan economy. We saw the devaluation of the Venezuelan Bolivar. We also saw that the Venezuelan oil industry collapsed, even though it boasts having the largest oil reserves in the world, to the point that Venezuela now has to import its own gasoline from Iran and other countries.

REICHARD: Many of us remember that the opposition to Maduro used to be led by Juan Guaido…he declared an interim government following the contested 2018 election…but he’s no longer in charge. What happened to him, and who’s leading now?

PÁEZ: Juan Guaidó was the former Interim President of Venezuela. In 2019 he tried to overthrow Maduro through a constitutional means, but he was unsuccessful because of the divided opposition that supported him and that later took him out of his position. The difference now is that María Corina Machado has won the opposition primaries with 93% of the popular vote, and that makes her the strongest opposition leader that Venezuela has had since the rise of Hugo Chávez.

REICHARD: So why is Gonzalez on the ticket instead of Machado?

PÁEZ: Yes, so Machado won the primaries last year for the opposition, but she was part from competing by Nicolas Maduro through arbitrary means on the Supreme Court of Venezuela. Edmundo Gonzalez was picked by the opposition as a substitute for Machado. He has pledged to follow the same policies of María Corina Machado, and Machado successfully transferred all her political popularity and support to Edmundo Gonzalez. So at the end of the day he is representing Machado movement.

REICHARD: Well, now you have been looking into how this latest election that ended on Sunday was done. What did you find?

PÁEZ: Yes, so as time passes, we see more evidence that there was an electoral fraud by the part of the government. The Carter Center from the United States issued a statement demanding the Venezuelan Government to show the voting machine tallies on the election which have not been published to the public, and the opposition has, at the same time, declared victory itself, claiming to have won 70% of the popular vote for Edmundo Gonzalez

REICHARD: And just so people know, the Carter Center is an international observer of elections around the world. Can you speak to who was eligible to vote in this Venezuelan election? Given how many Venezuelans live abroad, that must be a concern.

PÁEZ: Yes, so of the 8 million Venezuelans located in exile, only 69,000 were able to vote. That means that basically 25% of the Venezuelan population was uneligible to vote and barred from its voting rights. Within Venezuela we also saw regularities for people to get registered to vote, and that poses a huge risk for a transparent electoral process.

REICHARD: So how has the opposition responded to that?

PÁEZ: The opposition has clearly denounced this as an attempt from the government to steal the votes. They have also emphasized that the great majority of Venezuelans living abroad are going to vote for opposition, and that is why they got barred from voting on the elections, and they have decided to not recognize the electoral results provided by the government and María Corina Machado has instead declared Edmundo Gonzalez as the new president of Venezuela.

REICHARD: And what do we know about how the citizens are responding to the election results?

PÁEZ: There have been protests worldwide, especially among the exiles who were not able to vote, that people are expressing a lot of anger, a lot of disappointment, but María Corina Machado has made it clear that this is not the end of her campaign, but actually the beginning. We have to see how the people will respond, if they will turn aggressive, or if they will wait for a signal from María Corina Machado to take further action.

REICHARD: Carlos, is there anything else regarding what's going on in Venezuela that would be helpful for people outside of Venezuela to understand?

PÁEZ: Yes, it is important for people abroad to realize that this can have regional consequences as well. 25% of the Venezuelan population has said that, that they would leave the country, marking another wave of mass migration that could destabilize the region all the more, and many of them coming to the United States and passing through the border with Mexico. It is also important to note that the taking of office for the next Venezuelan presidency will take place early next year, and there will be a six month period that will be crucial to determine what will happen to Venezuela in the near future. It will depend a lot, not only on the national politics that take place, but also on the commitment of world powers, especially if the United States and other Western leaders, to ensure a transition of power if Gonzales is recognized as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

REICHARD: We'll be keeping an eye on it for sure. Carlos Páez is an associate correspondent for WORLD and reports on Latin America. Carlos, thanks so much!

PÁEZ: Thank you.

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