Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is believed to have fraudulently won Sunday's election, securing him a new six-year term. Numerous regional governments questioned the official vote count, which showed Maduro with 51.2% of the vote after 80% of polling stations were counted.
The opposition claims that the results are not accurate and claims that it won the election with 70% of the votes.
Polls conducted over the summer consistently showed opposition candidate Edmundo González winning by double-digit margins.
When the National Electoral Council announced around midnight that Maduro had received 51% of the vote, compared with 44% for the leading opposition candidate, Edmundo González, Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council, said the results were based on 80% of the voting tables and represented an irreversible trend.
Even though Maduro was declared the winner for a third term, the opposition claimed victory, preparing a confrontation with the government over the results.
Experts fear Maduro could steal Venezuela's Sunday election as opposition leads polls
President Nicolas Maduro adjusts his glasses to mark his ballot for the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Agency)
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., condemned the outcome and criticized the Biden administration’s policies. “Another foreign policy fiasco by the Biden-Harris team,” he wrote in X. “They gave Maduro relief from Trump’s oil sanctions and released his top money launderer and his two nephews convicted of drug trafficking in exchange for a “promise” to hold fair elections overseen by neutral international observers.”
The electoral authority, controlled by Maduro loyalists, did not immediately publish results from each of the 30,000 polling stations across the country, preventing the opposition from challenging the results after claiming it only had data from about 30% of ballot boxes.
“Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” Gonzalez said.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Gonzalez's margin of victory was “overwhelming.” Machado said the opposition had results from about 40 percent of the ballot boxes nationwide and that more were expected overnight.
Officials and lawmakers in the United States and elsewhere expressed skepticism about the validity of the results of Venezuela's presidential election after Maduro was declared the winner.
A bipartisan group of congressional leaders said Maduro's victory was fraudulent:
“To no one's surprise, dictator Nicolás Maduro has once again stolen a presidential election. However, what the narco-regime will never steal is the desire of the Venezuelan people to return to democracy and live in freedom after decades of tyranny.”
A supporter of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado attend a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Zulia state, Venezuela, July 23, 2024. Venezuela will hold presidential elections on July 28, 2024. (Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images)
The statement continued: “We must prioritize uniting the free world to reject these false election results and secure the release of the more than 300 Venezuelans who remain arbitrarily detained in torture centers as political prisoners.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday in Tokyo that the United States has “serious concerns” about the announced outcome.
Blinken said the United States feared the result did not reflect the will or votes of the Venezuelan people, and called on election officials to immediately release the full results. He also said the United States and the international community would respond accordingly.
Later Monday, State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel echoed Blinken: “We have serious concerns that this outcome does not reflect the will and votes of the Venezuelan people.”
BARBARIC CRIMES AGAINST VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS OCCUR WHILE MADURO REFUSES TO TAKE BACK ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS FROM THE U.S.
Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez waves as he leaves the polling station with his wife Mercedes Lopez, center, and daughter Mariana after voting in the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, July 28, 2024. (AP Agency)
Several leaders across the region were quick to condemn the result. Reuters reported Argentina's President Javier Milei as saying: “Not even (Maduro) believes in the electoral fraud he is celebrating. Neither does the Argentine Republic. We do not recognize the fraud, we call on the international community to unite to restore the rule of law in Venezuela and we remind the Venezuelan people that the doors of our country are open to every man who chooses to live in freedom.”
Panama's new president, José Raúl Mulino, wrote that “we are suspending diplomatic relations until a complete review of the voting records and the computerized voting system is carried out.”
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Supporters of Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado hold their pictures during a campaign rally in Maracaibo, Zulia state, Venezuela, July 23, 2024. Venezuela will hold presidential elections on July 28, 2024. (Raul Arboldea/AFP via Getty Images)
Reuters also reported El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele as saying: “What we saw yesterday in Venezuela has no other name than fraud. An 'election' where the official result has no relation to reality. Something obvious to anyone.”
Opposition officials in Venezuela said tallies they collected from campaign officials at 30 percent of the country's polling stations showed Gonzalez defeating the president.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
