It was scarcely a vote of confidence, but Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has, or claims to have, survived a hotly contested election that had been widely predicted to kick out the country’s autocratic “socialist” government after a quarter of a century in power.
The government-controlled National Electoral Council, yesterday announced that Maduro had secured 51.2 per cent of the votes with 80 per cent counted, while his main opposition challenger, 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González, had managed 44.2 per cent. Pre-election polls had predicted a win by a 20 to 30-point margin for the latter, who had contested the poll after the courts debarred popular opposition leader María Corina Machado from doing so.
Machado, backed by diplomatic observers from several neighbouring states and the US, denounced serious irregularities in the count and the result as “impossible”. The campaign had been marred by widespread voter intimidation, the arrests of opposition politicians and a denial of access to most international electoral observers. The opposition hoped to ensure a fair vote by relying on access at the country’s 15,000 polling stations to physical printouts from local voting machines to verify nationally collated results. Local polling officials had only given access to 40 per cent of the printouts, Machado said.
Protests are certain to follow, like those in 2014, 2017 and 2019, when security forces aligned with Maduro used deadly force to crush demonstrations. And the clearly fraudulent election will do nothing to end the international isolation of the country, most notably via US sanctions, which have crippled the economy and seen a quarter of its population flee abroad in the last decade.
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Venezuela recently appeared to be emerging from a deep slump and to be making its peace with foreign investors, with socialist rhetoric played down. Hyperinflation and rampant crime have subsided somewhat. However, on the evidence of this election, Maduro does not seem ready to change his spots. Venezuela’s agony is set to continue.