Venezuela’s opposition says it has proof of election fraud

Venezuela’s opposition can prove that Edmundo González won Sunday’s election, according to María Corina Machado, who led the campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. 

Machado told supporters at her party’s campaign headquarters on Monday evening that the opposition has enough of the “actas,” or voting tabulations to prove they won the election. Sunday night, they had access to about 40 percent of them, now they say they have over 70 percent. The figures show a categoric and “irreversible” triumph: 6.2 million votes for González compared to 2.8 million for Maduro, says the opposition.

“Effectively, what happened was that the regime slept very worried and we did not sleep,” Machado said to a cheerful crowd. “We were very busy and that´s the reason why we have what we have here today.”

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas to protest what they say is Maduro’s fraudulent win.

At least one person died and 46 were arrested during the demonstrations, according to Foro Penal, a nonprofit network of lawyers who provide legal assistance to political prisoners in the country. Downtown Caracas was heavily militarised after protesters dispersed overnight.

González, who stood alongside Machado, said that while he understands people’s indignation, calm is needed. The will of the people, which was expressed on Sunday’s vote, will be respected, he said. Protests had already started to wind down at that point. 

“Venezuela wants peace and recognition of the will and expression of the people,” González said. “That is why it is essential that the authorities respect that will we expressed in the ballot box.”

Machado also called for nationwide “citizen assemblies” at 11 am Tuesday. Those would likely take a different tone than Monday’s given that she asked families and kids to join. Alongside Gonzalez, she will join one of those assemblies in Caracas on Tuesday.

It was Machado’s first public statement after the public prosecutor named her as a suspect in an alleged plot to sabotage the election. The accusations against Machado mark a turning point in what’s already been an aggressive campaign to clamp down on the fervent movement she’s created, even after the regime banned her from running for public office. 

Though Venezuela’s Public Prosecutor Tarek William Saab stopped short of announcing an arrest warrant for Machado earlier Monday, it would be a predictable next step in a playbook that Maduro’s government has followed before. 

The government threatened Juan Guaidó, the lawmaker who in 2019 was internationally recognized as interim president following Maduro’s illegitimate reelection the year before, with arrest in 2021. Two years later, Saab issued an arrest warrant for Guaidó for allegedly using Venezuela’s state-owned oil company for his own profit. Guaidó now lives in exile in Miami. 

It’s unclear what Machado’s options are. Over the last few months, more than 100 of her and González’s aides and allies have been arrested. The government has also confiscated her passport.  

Internationally, the stand-off risks isolating Venezuela even further. US President Joe Biden and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who has historically been supportive of Maduro — are due to discuss the latest developments in a call Tuesday afternoon. Peru said it was expelling Venezuela’s diplomats in Lima, a response to Maduro’s decision to order the departure of envoys from seven nations, including Peru and neighbouring Panama. 

With the US and many Latin American nations calling for transparency of the vote tally, further repression of the opposition would not bode well for the regime, which desperately needs international recognition and sanctions relief to stage an economic recovery.

Venezuela said it will temporarily suspend commercial flights to and from Panama and the Dominican Republic, whose governments questioned the results of the election. The Transportation Ministry said in a statement it was taking the decision to “preserve and defend the inalienable right of self-determination of the Venezuelan people.”

Alfonso Linares, a 24-year-old student, was heading back east with a crowd in Venezuela’s capital after security forces dispersed an earlier protest using tear gas. He said nobody had called him or any of the people there to protest, but that they just wanted a change. 

“They prevented us from moving forward but we’re still fighting,” Linares said. “We will protect ourselves but we are not abandoning this. We’re just going back to rethink other ways.”

An early July survey by Caracas-based firm Delphos found that almost 40 percent of Venezuelans believed that if there was fraud, they should protest until the government recognises the real results of the election. 

This year’s election — which Maduro intentionally planned on the birthday of his late mentor and former president Hugo Chávez — was undoubtedly different than years past. Venezuelans, for the first time in more than a decade, felt hope that democracy could return to their nation, which on Maduro’s watch has seen one of the worst economic crises in modern history and the exodus of 7.7 million people. 

Machado rose to popularity on promises of overhauling the economy and reuniting families torn apart by the diaspora, at the same time that Venezuelans started to believe change was attainable. That combination has meant that, even off the ballot, Machado has posed the greatest threat to Maduro yet. 

There were signs that Maduro’s regime knew this election was different than in years past, too. In addition to banning Machado and her first stand-in candidate from running, her scheduled appearances were disrupted by power outages, and locals at a rally earlier this month say the government went as far as drilling potholes into roads to prevent them from reaching her. 

Maduro even attempted to rebrand his image, by inundating Venezuelans — particularly the youth, who have little recollection of the nation’s worst years — with endless streams of content that painted him as harmless and likable.

– TIMES/BLOOMBERG