Venezuela's Maduro declared winner amid fraud accusations

The National Electoral Council of Venezuela has declared Nicolás Maduro the winner of the presidential elections for the 2025-2031. However, this is hardly a normal election.

The Venezuelan news outlet Efecto Cocuyo indicates that the electoral council announced Maduro's victory after 80% of the tallies were scrutinized, granting him 51.2% of the votes.

For his part, Eduardo González Urrutia, the main candidate of the Venezuelan opposition, obtained 44.2% of the votes.

According to the Venezuelan newspaper TalCual, Maduro addressed to dozens of supporters from the Miraflores Palace, the country's government seat, from where he denounced cyberattacks against the electoral system.

“Venezuela suffered an attack. A massive hack, a massive attack on the electoral transmission system. They did not want the result to be totaled,” declared Maduro, as quoted by TalCual.

Maduro also made strong accusations against the Venezuelan opposition: “People who were going to burn electoral centers. No mercy for the terrorists, the violent protesters, but we are not going to allow violence to spiral out”.

Efecto Cocuyo points out that the Venezuelan opposition also denounced several irregularities during the election: the removal of opposition witnesses from polling centers, interruptions in the process, and failure to deliver tallies.

The digital news outlet Infobae informed that, in the western state of Táchira, a pro-Maduro armed gang attacked a polling center during the vote count, resulting in one death and several wounded.

María Corina Machado, de facto leader of the bulk of the Venezuelan opposition, rejected the results announced by the National Electoral Council. According to the Spanish newspaper El País, she claims to have 40% of the issued tallies, which supposedly reveal very different numbers.

“We have all the ones they released. Everything points out that Edmundo obtained 70% of the votes in this election. And Maduro 30% of the votes. It is the presidential election with the biggest difference in history,” said Machado.

“When I say that everyone knows it, I include the regime on top of the list. They know what happened and what they plan to do. Even the international community knows it,” declared the Venezuelan politician in a press conference, according to El País.

Several governments on the Americans have expressed their skepticism regarding the results announced by the Government of Venezuela.

“The Maduro regime must understand that the results are difficult to believe,” denounced the Chilean president Gabriel Boric via X, formerly Twitter. “From Chile, we will not recognize any result that can't be verified.”

US State Secretary Antony Blinken expressed doubts about the results announced by the Venezuelan electoral council. “We have serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or votes of the Venezuelan people,” he indicated, according to Reuters.

“It's critical that every vote is counted fairly and transparently, that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and electoral observers without delay and that the electoral authorities publish detailed tabulation of votes,” Blinken added, per Reuters.

The Government of Costa Rica, led by social democrat Rodrigo Chaves Robles, rejected the proclamation of Nicolás Maduro as president of Venezuela in an official statement, calling the process “fraudulent.”

The Argentine president, Javier Milei, stated from his X account (formerly Twitter) that his country didn't recognize the election results: “The Venezuelans chose to end with Maduro's Communist dictatorship”.

Maduro will not begin his new presidential term until January 2025. However, they say a week is a long time in politics, so who knows what can happen in the following months.

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