Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is widely believed to have won a fraudulent election on Sunday, cementing him in office for another six years. Many local governments have cast doubt on the official results, which showed Maduro winning 51.2% of the vote, with 80% of polling stations having been counted.
The opposition claims the results are inaccurate and claims they won the election with 70% of the vote.
Polls over the summer consistently showed opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez winning by double digits.
When the National Electoral Commission announced around midnight that Maduro had won 51 percent of the vote to Gonzalez, the main opposition candidate,’s 44 percent, its president, Elvis Amoroso, said the results were based on 80 percent of polling stations and showed an irreversible trend.
Despite Maduro being declared elected for a third term, the opposition claimed victory, setting off a showdown with the government over the results.
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President Nicolas Maduro voted in the presidential elections in Caracas, Venezuela on July 28, 2024. (Associated Press)
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) denounced the results and criticized the Biden administration’s policies.
“Another foreign policy blunder by the Biden-Harris team,” he wrote on X. “They gave Maduro an exemption from Trump’s oil sanctions and released two of his masterminds, a money launderer and a convicted drug trafficker’s nephews, in exchange for a ‘promise’ to hold fair elections overseen by neutral international observers.”
The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro’s allies, did not immediately release the results from 30,000 polling stations across the country, leaving the opposition unable to challenge the outcome, claiming they only had data from around 30% of the ballot boxes.
“The Venezuelan people and the whole world know what happened,” Gonzalez said.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Gonzalez’s margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had the results of about 40 percent of ballot boxes across the country and expected more results overnight.
Officials and lawmakers in the United States and other countries expressed skepticism about the legitimacy of Venezuela’s presidential election results after Maduro was declared the winner.
A bipartisan group of congressional leaders has argued that Maduro’s victory was fraudulent.
“To the surprise of no one, dictator Nicolas Maduro has once again stolen a presidential election. But what the narco-regime can never take away is the desire of the Venezuelan people to return to democracy and live in freedom after decades of oppression.”
Supporters of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado attend a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, on July 23, 2024. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)
“We must unite the free world in rejecting these false election results and prioritize securing the release of the more than 300 Venezuelans who remain arbitrarily detained in torture centers as political prisoners,” the statement continued.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday in Tokyo that the United States had “serious concerns” about the announced results.
Blinken said the United States was concerned that the election results did not reflect the will and vote of the Venezuelan people and called on electoral authorities to immediately release full results, and that the United States and the international community would respond accordingly.
Later the same day, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel echoed Blinken’s remarks, saying, “We are deeply concerned that the outcome does not reflect the will and vote of the Venezuelan people.”
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Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez leaves a polling station with his wife Mercedes Lopez (center) and daughter Mariana after casting his vote in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 28, 2024. (Associated Press)
Leaders across the region were quick to condemn the outcome. Reuters reported that Argentine President Javier Milley said: “We are very sorry about this. [Maduro] “The Argentine Republic does not believe in the electoral fraud that the Venezuelan President is celebrating, just as we do not believe in it. We do not accept fraud and call on the international community to stand united in restoring the rule of law in Venezuela. And we remind the Venezuelan people that the doors of our country are open to all who choose to live in freedom.”
“We are suspending diplomatic relations until a full review of the voting records and voting computer system is conducted,” Panama’s new President, José Raul Mulino, wrote.
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Supporters of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado hold up a photo during a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Venezuela, July 23, 2024. (Raul Albordea/AFP via Getty Images)
Reuters also quoted Salvadoran President Najib Bukele as saying, “What we saw yesterday in Venezuela can only be described as fraud. An ‘election’ whose official results have no bearing on reality. It’s clear to all.”
Venezuela’s opposition leaders said results collected from campaign representatives in 30 percent of the country’s polling stations showed Gonzalez had won the presidency. Thousands of people protested the results, and there were reports of sporadic anti-Maduro demonstrations in Caracas and other parts of the country.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
