( Spanish) – This Saturday marks two months since the presidential elections in Venezuela. The National Electoral Council (CNE) declared President Nicolás Maduro as the winner, without the detailed results by voting centers and tables being known to date.
The country has since faced weeks of tensions, reports of repression, detention of opponents, activists and journalists, and failed calls from the international community for transparency. Even at the beginning of September the opposition leader, Edmundo González, fled Venezuela and in an interview he acknowledged that he went to Spain to ensure his freedom.
Here we leave you an account of the most important thing that has happened in these two months.
On July 28, the CNE proclaimed Nicolás Maduro the winner of the presidential elections with 51% of the votes, a result that the opposition did not recognize and that Latin American leaders described as “hard to believe.”
The opposition coalition, led by María Corina Machado, rejected Maduro’s victory and stated that opposition records showed that opposition candidate Edmundo González received 70% of the votes against Maduro’s 30%. “We won and everyone knows it,” Machado said.
The American newspaper The Washington Post said at the beginning of August that it accessed 80% of the electoral records in Venezuela and that Edmundo González would be the winner of the elections with 66% of the votes while Nicolás Maduro would reach 30%. had access to the same data through an independent source and verified that the results at the table where the Minister of Defense, Vladimir Padrino López, voted, are the same as those published on the website resultsconvzla.com, owned by Machado’s team.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the election results the day after the election and with less intensity in the following weeks. Different demonstrations called by the opposition and the ruling party took place in Caracas and other parts of the world. A month after the elections, on August 28, opposition leaders took to the streets accompanied by dozens of Venezuelans to denounce fraud in the elections and demand that González Urrutia be declared the winner of the elections.
The ruling party also called on its supporters to support Nicolás Maduro and celebrate the “great popular victory.”
After Maduro was declared the winner without evidence, Latin American countries, the European Union and the United States called for transparent scrutiny and the publication of the minutes of all polling stations to guarantee verifiable results.
In response, the Government of Nicolás Maduro expelled diplomatic personnel from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay following accusations of electoral fraud in the elections.
And it wasn’t just the governments of other countries. The Electoral Observation Department of the Organization of American States (OAS) said that the results announced by the CNE cannot be recognized due to the lack of transparency and evidence.
The OAS said the CNE did not provide details of the ballots processed when it declared Maduro the winner.
For its part, the Carter Center – one of the few independent institutions authorized to monitor the Venezuelan elections – stated that the election “did not conform to international parameters and standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.”
In the midst of the controversy, Maduro presented a contentious electoral appeal on July 31 before the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) to certify the results. The following month, on August 22, the highest court validated the results already given, although it did not give details of the results of its investigation.
In addition, it decided that all electoral material delivered by the CNE remains under the protection of the TSJ and ratified the competence of the Electoral Chamber to certify the results of the presidential elections.
At least 25 people died in the days following election day on July 28, according to figures from the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office. Of the total number of deaths, two correspond to officials of the Bolivarian National Guard, said Attorney General Tarek William Saab.
The protests in Caracas and other Venezuelan cities also left hundreds of detainees due to repression by security forces. The non-governmental organization Penal Forum said that as of August 22, there were at least 1,674 arrests linked to the country’s political situation, including minors and people with disabilities.
Official figures reported more than 2,200 detainees in relation to these demonstrations.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) said in a report on August 28 that there is a “serious crisis” in Venezuela that includes the arbitrary use of force, arbitrary detentions, judicial persecution, restrictions on freedom of expression and obstacles to the work of human rights organizations.
This week, mothers and fathers of detained teenagers protested in front of the main headquarters of the Prosecutor’s Office, in the center of Caracas, to demand the release of their relatives. Foro Penal said that as of September 26 there are 68 teenagers detained.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and its Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (RELE) condemned what they described as “practices of institutional violence” in Venezuela that occurred within the framework of the political crisis that the country is experiencing after the elections.
Even the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, said at the end of July that he would request the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest President Nicolás Maduro for what he described as the “bloodbath.” ” during the protests in the country.
Another factor that has marked the post-election crisis in Venezuela is the political persecution against opposition leaders.
On July 30, the opposition Popular Will Party of Venezuela denounced the kidnapping of its leader Freddy Superlano, which took place amid arrests across the country by Venezuelan authorities following protests against the election results. Without mentioning the charges he faces, Saab stated that the leader is “in good health” and “is cooperating.”
Other high-profile arrests were that of the former governor of the state of Mérida and leader of the Democratic Action (AD) party, Williams Dávila Barrios; former opposition deputy Américo De Grazia; and the coordinator of the Command with Venezuela in the Portuguesa state, María Oropeza, who transmitted the moment in which the security forces forcibly entered her house.
In early August, the Venezuelan Public Ministry said it opened a criminal investigation against González and Machado for “the alleged commission of the crimes of usurpation of functions, dissemination of false information to cause anxiety, instigation to disobedience of the laws, instigation to insurrection, criminal association and conspiracy.”
Meanwhile, Machado decided to limit his public appearances in view of the persecution initiated by the Government of Venezuela, as revealed in an article in The Wall Street that he wrote, as he said, from clandestinity, “fearing for his life, his freedom and that of his compatriots due to the actions of the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro.”
Additionally, several non-governmental organizations in Venezuela reported abuses against the press in coverage of the controversial electoral process, including unfounded accusations of terrorism against journalists.
The post-election crisis in Venezuela had a new chapter on September 20, when the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, released audios that, he said, prove that González Urrutia supposedly accepted the results of the presidential elections of July 28.
Hours later, González’s lawyer, José Vicente Haro, criticized the dissemination of those recordings and considered that they were captured during what he described as “an ambush.” The recordings, which cannot be heard clearly, were presented as video clips that included a photo of González, a letter, and subtitles.
Edmundo González decided to flee Venezuela and request political asylum in Spain on September 8. Through X, the former candidate explained that he made the decision because he thought about his family and all Venezuelan families in “this moment of so much tension and anguish.”
“I have made such a decision thinking about Venezuela and that our destiny as a country cannot, should not be, that of a conflict of pain and suffering,” González expressed.
The opponent acknowledged that he went to Spain to secure his freedom after obtaining guarantees that his family, his car and his apartment in Venezuela would be safe, according to an interview given to Reuters from Madrid.
González said that a member of his security team informed him that the Venezuelan authorities were preparing to arrest him: “They are coming for you” and advised him to leave the country.
Two months after the elections, tension remains while the international community, especially the governments of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, closest to Maduro, try to work around the clock to find a political solution. The new presidential term in Venezuela begins on January 10, 2025.
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