Venezuelans and the international community have more questions than certainty about the results
Originally published on Global Voices
On the left: Opposition leaders Edmundo González Urrutia and María Corina Machado. On the right: President Nicolás Maduro. Collage made by ProBox, used with permission.
This article was published in ProBox on July 30, 2024. This is an edited version republished in Global Voices under a media partnership.
The day of the presidential election in Venezuela, July 28, has come and gone. However, Venezuelan citizens and the international community are left with more questions than answers regarding the results presented by Venezuela's electoral authority, the National Electoral Council (CNE). They declared Nicolás Maduro the winner in the fastest proclamation in the country’s democratic history.
The opposition, led by María Corina Machado and presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, asserted that exit polls indicated that the opposition won with around 70 percent of the vote. They also denounced irregularities in the release of voting records and the lack of citizen and media auditing the elections.
Venezuelan and regional independent media carried out substantial coverage of the elections in the country. In a context where traditional media are aligned with pro-government narratives and where the regime blocked more than 60 news portals, digital media banded together in a live broadcast that continues to this day.
In response, organizations, independent media, and citizens made active use of all digital spaces for information, reporting, and recording complaints. On X (formerly Twitter), we registered a record high in the use of sociopolitical tags over the past five years of the network's activity.
#VenezuelaVota (#VenezuelaIsVoting) became an rallying call led by the media outlet El Pitazo, uniting more than 100 journalists and more than 120 allied media outlets in Venezuela and the world to report in real time the details of these historic elections.
The broadcast of VPITV, an online news channel that continuously broadcasts live events in the country, is also noteworthy.
In this context, there were also reports of press restrictions during the elections, as well as reports of incidents such as delays in the opening of some voting centers. Voting centers were characterized by long queues, mainly due to high voter turnout from the early hours of the morning.
Reports of disinformation about election day emerged after midday, when media aligned with the ruling party began disseminating questionable exit polls. The polls not only violated electoral law but were also conducted by recently established companies of dubious origin.
The spread of fake polls is nothing new. From ProBox, in conjunction with C-Informa, we have investigated the dissemination of false polls in favor of Nicolás Maduro.
However, what had been a relatively peaceful day (at least within the authoritarian context of Venezuela) changed in the evening after various official spokespeople “suggested” Maduro's electoral victory hours before the official release of the results from the electoral authorities.
The Venezuelan authorities fell in line in what the opposition and various countries in the region consider an electoral fraud. On July 28, after the voting booths closed, the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, made a series of statements subtly declaring a resounding victory for Nicolás Maduro, despite opposition numbers and international exit polls indicating different results.
Hours later, the president of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, confirmed Rodriguez's early statements. He announced that, in an initial bulletin and with 80 percent of votes counted, the winner was Nicolás Maduro. Less than 12 hours after this announcement, Amoroso was already proclaiming Maduro's presidency for the 2025–2031 term.
At the same time, the Public Prosecutor's Office issued a statement accusing María Corina Machado of hacking the electoral system on election day. According to the Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, the slowdown in the CNE's release of voting records occurred due to a cyberattack orchestrated by Lester Toledo, Leopoldo López, and opposition leader María Corina Machado.
Using these fabricated narratives, Nicolás Maduro claimed that the opposition wanted to stage a coup d'état.
On July 30, Maduro urged the population to use the VenApp application to report people who go out to protest. This set off international alarms about the danger of citizens being accused and arrested by the regime, so Apple and Android removed the app from their app store. The word VenApp has also been trending since that day for more than 24 hours with more than 80,400 tweets.
The Venezuelan opposition led by María Corina Machado and Edmundo González declared electoral fraud. After the closing of the polling stations, members of the Democratic Unity Roundtable reported a halt in the release of tally sheets and restricted access to the CNE as electoral guarantors in the tallying process.
Following the CNE's announcement of Nicolás Maduro's supposed victory, María Corina Machado's proclamations were blunt: there was fraud and González won with 70 percent of the votes.
Finally, in a press conference on Monday, July 29 at 7 pm Venezuelan time, María Corina Machado and Edmundo González announced that they had the evidence to prove that they won, with 73.20 percent of the tally sheets in hand. The opposition leader gave figures: according to this count, the votes in favor of Maduro were 2,759,256, while Edmundo González obtained 6,275,182 votes.
The opposition also posted the voting tallies they collected to online channels, claiming they give the victory to Edmundo González.
Venezolano, a través de este enlace podrás ver cómo con tu voto y tu voluntad, cambiaste la historia de Venezuela.
Aquí encontrarás las actas que hasta esta hora hemos procesado y totalizado, y que confirman nuestro extraordinario triunfo:https://t.co/UdKJvhm7Eb— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) July 30, 2024
Venezuelan, through this link you will be able to see how with your vote and your will, you changed the history of Venezuela.
Here you will find the results that we have processed and totaled up to this moment, and that confirm our extraordinary triumph.
Following the declarations of the CNE and María Corina Machado, countries from all over the world, as well as international organizations, have issued their own statements questioning the electoral results.
The United States, Brazil, Costa Rica, Argentina, Panama, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia, the European Union, Spain, and Norway have voiced concerns over the situation and called for a CNE audit.
Maduro's allies have indicated their support for Chavismo. Among the countries that congratulated the president are Russia, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Honduras.
Organizations such as the Carter Center and the UN have also raised their voices to demand that the CNE immediately publish the results of the presidential elections.
The UN called for “total transparency” in the results, while the Carter Center published on the night of July 30 a strong report in which it described the elections as “undemocratic.” It did so after withdrawing its staff from the country in the face of escalating protests. The keyword “Carter Center” was trending on X on July 31 with more than 300,000 messages.
In view of the international reaction, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry decided to withdraw its diplomatic personnel from seven countries: Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay.
On the morning of July 29, the media reported that the streets of the country were clear and calm. Then, people started to bang pots and pans in Caracas, a popular form of protest in Latin America known as cacerolazo.
At the time of this report, mobilizations and the closure of streets and avenues were taking place in various parts of the capital city and other cities in the country. Protests have been increasing and have already begun to be dispersed with tear gas.
María Corina Machado and Edmundo González led one of the rallies on July 30 in Caracas, from where they confirmed the victory of the opposition candidate and the receipt of the voting records that prove it.
The latest figures of state repression registered by the Penal Forum reports that since July 29, 2024 there have been 429 verified arrests and 11 deaths.
Opposition leader Machado asked Venezuelans to go out with their families to “protect the votes.” She also asked people to attend street assemblies throughout the country. The first assembly has already taken place. In cities all over the country, people gathered to support the opposition's demands.
“We ask that you go with your family, we do not call for violence because one does not bring one's family to violent actions,” Machado stated.
