July 30, 2024, 5:20 p.m.
Twenty-five years after Hugo Chávez was first elected president of Venezuela on a populist, socialist platform, ushering in a new era that eventually left the oil-rich country in a deep financial crisis, Venezuela appears on the verge of a tipping point.
On Sunday, Venezuelans headed to the polls en masse to vote in an election that promised to end decades of strongman rule. Since 1999, the country had been led by Chávez and then, following his death in 2013, by his brutal predecessor, Nicolás Maduro. This year’s election pitted Maduro against opposition candidate Edmundo González, who ran after Venezuela’s highest court banned the popular opposition leader María Corina Machado from standing for office. Even though González was added to the ticket late in the campaign, polls leading up to the election showed the opposition in the lead.
Then, almost immediately after the polls closed, Maduro announced that he had won with 51 percent of the vote. Independent exit polls, however, cast doubt on that result, suggesting that González had won. The government did not release the vote counts, raising questions about how officials tallied the final results. Election observers said the voting was peppered with irregularities and that long lines at polling stations aimed to dissuade people from voting. González claimed his campaign had proof that he defeated Maduro.
The contested election and Maduro’s insistence on holding onto power show the limits of U.S. foreign policy in Venezuela. Nevertheless, some experts say the Biden administration’s push for negotiations between Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition, which resulted in an agreement signed in Barbados last year that laid out the conditions for a competitive election, has done more to promote Venezuelan democracy than the pressure campaigns that came before it.
“The foreign policy prior to Biden, which was maximum-pressure policy, which was imposing sanctions, really isolating Maduro internationally, and at some point apparently supporting a takeover by force, didn’t work. That is established,” said Renata Segura, program director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group. “You could say that because there was fraud [in Sunday’s election], then the negotiations that had been conducted by the U.S. directly with Maduro, moderated by Qatar, and also the dialogue between the government and the opposition that took place in Mexico and that ended in the Barbados agreement, clearly they didn’t get the result that everyone was hoping for, which was a fair election. However, I don’t think that we would have even had an election in which there was a competitive candidate if it hadn’t been for those negotiations. If you have to compare both, I would say the negotiation path has advanced the needle way more than where we were with maximum pressure.”
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have pushed for change in Venezuela. Following the 2018 presidential elections, Maduro claimed victory amid widespread electoral irregularities. The Trump administration, whose foreign policy was guided by hawks such as Special Adviser Elliott Abrams and National Security Adviser John Bolton, opted to recognize then-opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president. The rationale was that the country had no legitimate president because the 2018 elections weren’t free. Venezuela’s constitution states that the president of the National Assembly should serve as acting president until any leadership dispute is resolved. Guaidó was in that role at the time.
Over 50 countries followed the U.S. example in recognizing him. But Guaidó was eventually forced into exile. He had little influence over events in Venezuela, and the international movement in his favor petered out with few results.
After President Biden came to office in 2021, his administration took a similar, if more subdued, approach. It continued to treat Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate representative even when countries in Europe and Latin America abandoned him. Diplomats in Washington also began tentative talks with Maduro. In 2022, the Treasury Department granted the oil giant Chevron permission to produce and export oil from Venezuela as long as the Maduro regime restarted talks with the opposition. State Department officials claimed this week that the Sunday election wouldn’t have occurred without that U.S. diplomacy.
Nevertheless, Washington couldn’t prevent Maduro from declaring victory on Sunday despite little evidence that he had won. The regime’s alleged electoral win was met by a chorus of voices from the international community who argued that Maduro must release polling results to prove he really is the winner.
“By engaging in repression and electoral manipulation, and by declaring a winner without the detailed precinct-by-precinct polling results, or actas in Spanish, to support a claim, Maduro representatives have stripped the supposed election results they announced of any credibility,” said a senior Biden administration official, who spoke on background to speak freely.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday the U.S. has “serious concerns that the results announced [do] not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, called on the Venezuelan government to release the detailed vote count. Germany’s Foreign Office similarly said the announced election results didn’t do enough to dispel doubts about their legitimacy. The office released a statement calling for “the publication of detailed results for all polling stations and access to all voting and election documents for opposition and observers.”
The governments of Uruguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and the Dominican Republic released a joint statement expressing deep concern about the election outcome. Leaders of Colombia and Chile voiced skepticism about Maduro’s alleged win, and the Organization of American States called an emergency meeting.
Members of Congress also weighed in. Sen. Chris Coons, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Maduro loyalists are attempting to steal the election in plain sight.” Sen. Tim Kaine and Rep. Joaquin Castro released a joint statement arguing, "Every vote must be counted and verified.” Sen. Chris Murphy, another member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said, “Exit polls, precinct-level reporting, and the wave of enthusiasm for the opposition coalition make it nearly impossible to believe President Maduro’s claims of victory are credible.” Sen. Lindsey Graham called for sanctions to be reimposed. The State Department said it is continuing to monitor the situation and considering next steps.
Only leaders of authoritarian countries such as Russia, Iran, Cuba, and China congratulated Maduro on his electoral win.
What will happen now is unclear. Opposition leader Machado has called on Venezuela’s armed forces to stand “on the right side of history.” Both pro-government and opposition protesters have taken to the streets. Some have expressed concern that the opposition might be in danger.
Meanwhile, many Venezuelans said they would flee the country if Maduro remains in power, creating the conditions for a potential exodus that would put pressure on neighboring countries such as Colombia and Panama and send more migrants seeking safety at U.S. southern border. An estimated 8 million Venezuelans have already abandoned the country due to the economic collapse that unfolded after Maduro took power.
Protests against the Maduro regime spread across the country on Tuesday. The country’s defense minister backed Maduro and said demonstrators were attempting to foment a coup. González, now claiming to be Venezuela’s president-elect, released a video directed at the Venezuelan people.
“Unfortunately, in the last few hours, we have reports of people who died, tens of wounded, and people detained,” González said. “To the security forces and our armed forces, we insist that you respect the will of Venezuelans expressed on July 28, and stop the repression of peaceful demonstrations. ... We Venezuelans want peace and respect for the people’s will.”
