By Julie Turkewitz and Jack Nicas
The message delivered last Thursday night was blunt: The United States recognized Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate as the winner in Sunday’s election and dismissed a declaration by election officials that the country’s autocrat, President Nicolás Maduro, had won.
The government has not produced any data supporting his claim of victory, the Biden administration said, while his rival, Edmundo González, had tallies from a majority of voting machines that his team said show he had won by an “insurmountable margin.” The New York Times has not verified those tallies.
The U.S. declaration ratcheted up the international condemnation of a vote riddled with irregularities and was an attempt to warn Maduro that the world would not accept a farce. Even some of Maduro’s fellow leftist leaders in Latin America have expressed grave doubts about his claim of victory.
But will it matter?
There is widespread skepticism that foreign pressure will affect Maduro’s grip on power, at least in the short term.
Already, protests in support of González have sputtered out, as security forces and pro-government gangs have responded with force. At least 17 people have died, including one soldier. About 750 people have been arrested in the demonstrations, according to the country’s attorney general.
At the same time, a half dozen members of the opposition’s campaign team are hiding out in an embassy in Caracas, the capital, trying to avoid arrest. González’s main backer, popular opposition leader María Corina Machado, said in a recent op-ed that she was writing “from hiding, fearing for my life.” Her public appearances since the election have been brief.
Authorities have threatened to arrest her and González, while their team awoke Friday to discover that her office had been broken into and vandalized. The two opposition leaders have called for a march in Caracas on Saturday. But many Venezuelans know they could face arrest, or even death, and it’s unclear how large the gathering will be.
In response to foreign governments criticizing Maduro’s victory claim, the Venezuelan leader has simply ordered some of their diplomatic missions to leave his country.
His movement — first under Hugo Chávez and, for the last 11 years, under Maduro — has ruled Venezuela for a quarter century, consolidating power and gaining control over every branch of the government and most of the news media.
The United States has tried for years to oust Maduro, calling his reelection in 2018 a sham, imposing harsh sanctions on the country’s oil industry and, along with dozens of other countries, backing the head of the country’s legislature, Juan Guaidó, in 2019, when Guaidó declared himself the nation’s interim leader. None of that succeeded in removing Maduro.Now life in the repressive country could get even worse.
Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist, said that following Sunday’s election, Venezuela was probably looking at “the beginning of a truly full-fledged dictatorship” in which even the remaining shreds of democracy would disappear.
In Venezuela many people believe Maduro allowed the vote to take place, after leading opponents were disqualified, jailed or driven into exile, in an effort to gain some domestic and foreign legitimacy, and as part of an effort to have the United States lift its sanctions.
People close to him said he believed that he could win.
But as exit polls Sunday began to show that Maduro was losing — badly — the goal shifted. By late afternoon, his quest was simply to remain in power, no matter the price, analysts said. And that appears to be exactly what Maduro did.
Hours after polls closed, the country’s election authority announced that with 80% of voting machines reporting, Maduro had received 51% of the vote, and González 44%. But it released no vote counts.
The opposition campaign, however, collected receipts printed by each polling machine. By Thursday the campaign said that it had gathered receipts from 81% of the machines, and that its count indicated that González had won 67% of the vote.
It has published the results online.
But the reality, Rodríguez said, is that the cost of losing was just too high for Maduro to even consider: Leaving power could land him in prison.
The leader has been indicted in the United States, accused of narco-trafficking, and is being investigated by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
But committing electoral fraud in such a seemingly brazen manner doesn’t cost him nearly as much.
Countries that could have some sway over Maduro are Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, all regional powers led by leftist leaders who have been relatively friendly with the Venezuelan leader.
All three have taken a softer approach than the United States, voicing doubts about the election rather than saying outright that Maduro lost, believing, perhaps, that if they avoid antagonizing him they can persuade him to finally release vote results.
Or, in the longer term, he could be pushed toward some kind of power-sharing deal with the opposition, as has happened in other authoritarian nations.
The administration of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil has become a key ally in the international community’s approach to Venezuela, according to a U.S. State Department official who was not authorized to speak on the record about diplomatic affairs.
The Brazilian leader has developed a warm relationship with President Joe Biden since the U.S. president helped Lula fend off Brazil’s own threat to democracy during the 2022 Brazilian election, and Lula has grown frustrated with Maduro in recent months, the official said.
His government this week came to the aid of six members of the González-Machado campaign who have been holed up the Argentine Embassy in Caracas in an effort to avoid arrest. When Maduro ordered the Argentines to leave this week, Brazil took over the embassy building, effectively offering its protection to Maduro’s enemies. It was a bold stance for Brazil.
Yet there are signs that Lula may ultimately shy away from taking dramatic steps against Maduro, like breaking off relations.
In an interview with the Brazilian television station Globo on Tuesday, he characterized the election dispute as a quotidian disagreement that could be resolved in the Venezuelan courts — though the country’s top court is run by Maduro allies. “It is normal for there to be a fight,” the Brazilian president said.
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