Maduro declares victory in Venezuela presidential election as opposition claims fraud

Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday but his opponent is preparing to contest the results, setting up a crucial showdown that could determine whether the South American country moves away from one-party rule.

The National Electoral Commission announced shortly after midnight that Maduro had won 51% of the vote, beating opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez’s 44%. The commission said the results were based on a count of 80% of polling stations, and that the trend could not be reversed. However, the commission, which is controlled by Maduro supporters, did not immediately release the official tally from the 15,797 polling stations nationwide, meaning the opposition cannot challenge the results, claiming that only 30% of the ballot boxes had voting records.

The delay in announcing the results six hours after polls closed indicated serious discussions within the government about how to proceed after Maduro’s opponents declared victory earlier in the evening. Opposition representatives said tallies collected from campaign representatives at polling stations showed Gonzalez beating Maduro by a landslide. Maduro, seeking a third term, faces his toughest challenge yet from a most unlikely opponent: Gonzalez, a former diplomat who was unknown to voters until he was named in April as a last-minute deputy for opposition strongman Maria Corina Machado.

Opposition leaders were already celebrating Gonzalez’s landslide victory online and outside polling stations. “I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernandez, a 31-year-old banker, as opposition representatives emerged from a polling station in a working-class neighborhood of Caracas to announce the results, showing Gonzalez with more than twice as many votes as Maduro. Dozens of people nearby broke into an impromptu rendition of the national anthem.

“This is the path to a new Venezuela,” Fernández added, fighting back tears. “We are all tired of this bondage.” Earlier, US Vice President Kamala Harris also voiced her support for Fernández. “The United States stands with the Venezuelan people who made their voices heard in today’s historic presidential election,” Harris wrote on social media platform X. “The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.”

Voters began lining up before dawn on Sunday at polling stations across the country, sharing water, coffee and snacks for several hours. The election will have ripple effects across the Americas, with supporters and opponents of the government alike concerned about an exodus of the 7.7 million Venezuelans who have already left the country to seek opportunity abroad if Maduro wins another six-year term.

Authorities scheduled Sunday’s election to coincide with the 70th birthday of Hugo Chavez, the respected leftist firebrand who died of cancer in 2013 and entrusted Maduro with the mantle of the Bolivarian Revolution. But Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela are more unpopular than ever among many voters who blame his policies for driving down wages, promoting hunger, sapping the oil industry and separating families through migration.

After years of internal divisions and election boycotts that dashed ambitions of toppling the ruling party, the opposition has managed to solidify its position around one candidate. Machado had been barred from running for any public office for 15 years by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court. The former congressman won the opposition’s October primary with a landslide victory, winning more than 90% of the vote. After being barred from taking part in the presidential race, he fielded a university professor to run in his place, but the National Electoral Commission also barred him from registering. So Gonzalez, a political newcomer, was chosen.

There were eight candidates running against Maduro in Sunday’s vote, but Gonzalez was the only one who posed a threat to Maduro’s regime. After the vote, Maduro said he recognized the election results and urged all other candidates to publicly say the same. “No one will create chaos in Venezuela,” Maduro said. “I recognize and will continue to recognize the electoral jury and the official announcements, and I will see to it that they are recognized.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves and once boasted the most advanced economy in Latin America. But it has been in free fall since Maduro took power. Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages, and hyperinflation of over 130,000 percent led first to social unrest and then mass migration. After his reelection in 2018, U.S. economic sanctions aimed at removing Maduro from power (condemned as unjust by the U.S. and dozens of other countries) only deepened the crisis.

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President Maduro appealed to voters in this election on economic stability, talking about entrepreneurship, stable currency exchange, and low inflation. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Venezuela’s economy, which shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, will grow 4% this year, one of the fastest growth rates in Latin America. However, most Venezuelans have not seen an improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, and some families struggle to buy the necessities of life. Some people have second jobs or even three jobs.

The price of a basket of basic food items, enough to feed a family of four for a month, is an estimated $385. The opposition is trying to exploit the huge inequalities that have resulted from a crisis that has seen Venezuelans abandon the national currency, the bolivar, for the U.S. dollar. Gonzalez and Machado focused much of their campaign in Venezuela’s vast interior, where the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years has never materialized. They promised a government that would create enough jobs for Venezuelans living abroad to allow them to return home and reunite with their families.

President Maduro appealed to voters in this election on economic stability, talking about entrepreneurship, stable currency exchange, and low inflation. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Venezuela’s economy, which shrank 71% between 2012 and 2020, will grow 4% this year, one of the fastest growth rates in Latin America. However, most Venezuelans have not seen an improvement in their quality of life. Many earn less than $200 a month, and some families struggle to buy the necessities of life. Some people have second jobs or even three jobs.

The price of a basket of basic food items, enough to feed a family of four for a month, is an estimated $385. The opposition is trying to exploit the huge inequalities that have resulted from a crisis that has seen Venezuelans abandon the national currency, the bolivar, for the U.S. dollar. Gonzalez and Machado focused much of their campaign in Venezuela’s vast interior, where the economic activity seen in Caracas in recent years has never materialized. They promised a government that would create enough jobs for Venezuelans living abroad to allow them to return home and reunite with their families.