Venezuela election: Why has US declared Maduro's rival Edmundo González as winner?

The United States has weighed in on the controversial election in Venezuela.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has recognised Edmundo González Urrutia as the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election and not Nicolás Maduro.

But what happened? What did Blinken say? And why is the US siding with González?

Let’s take a closer look

What happened?

Maduro claimed victory in the country’s presidential election on Monday – hours after the country’s electoral authority (CNE) said he had won a third six-year term with 51 per cent of the vote.

The opposition, meanwhile, said González had won 70 per cent of the vote – and that it had the data to prove it.

The opposition pointed to multiple independent exit polls and quick counts showing an overwhelming victory for González.

Now, the US, has thrown its weight behind González.

“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election,” Blinken said in a statement on Thursday night.

“We congratulate Edmundo González Urrutia on his successful campaign,” Blinken added. “Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition in accordance with Venezuelan electoral law.”

Blinken previously asked for a detailed tabulation of votes be published.

According to The New York Times, the US is the biggest nation to recognise González as the winner.

The newspaper quoted Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, as saying Maduro’s claim to re-election is “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.”

US-Venezuela relations

It is also instructive to take a closer look at the relationship between the two nations in recent times.

The two countries have been at odds since the rise of  Hugo Chavez in the 1990s.

Prior to that, Venezuela was a major supplier of US oil.

Then, in 1992, Chavez, a former soldier, tried to launch a coup in Venezuela, as per CFR.

Though it failed, Chavez gained the national spotlight.

In 1998, Chavez ran for office – and came to power in a landslide victory.

Chavez vowed to use the oil-rich nation’s resources to reduce poverty and inequality.

Though Chavez expanded social services and reduced poverty by 20 per cent, the country’s debt more than twice doubled as its petroleum reserves diminished.

Chavez also began accruing more and more power – ending term limits, appointing his cronies to the Supreme Court, nationalising companies and assets and neutering the independent media.

Meanwhile, the US spent the past two decades imposed heavy sanctions on Venezuela.

These include barring imports from Venezuela’s state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) and stopping the government from accessing the US financial system.

Then, in 2013, Chavez passed away and his protégé Maduro came to power.

Things in Venezuela have gone from bad to worse.

Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared past 130,000% led to social unrest and mass emigration.

More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2014, the largest exodus in Latin America’s recent history.

As per _CSR r_eports, oil prices in 2014 sank 50 per cent – burdening the public purse.

The Maduro regime then turned to printing money instead of increasing taxes and cutting spending.

This led to rampant inflation.

Meanwhile, the government’s debt remained at astronomical levels with Russia and China as major creditors.

In 2017, the then Donald Trump administration ratcheted up the pressure on Maduro.

However, Maduro’s regime remained in power.

The Biden administration, which took power in 2020, has kept most of the sanctions imposed by the Trump regime.

However, in the backdrop of the Ukraine war – and Venezuela being the nation with the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil – the administration has chosen to pursue a ‘carrot and stick’ policy.

Why is the US siding with González?

The US is essentially attempting to lead diplomatic efforts to release the vote tallies from the polls.

But history shows it’s not going to be easy.

The New York Times reported that in 2019, the then Trump regime threw its weight behind Juan Guaidó, at the time the head of Venezuela’s legislature, that he was the rightful president.

Guaidó had claimed the Constitution allows the president of the National Assembly to take over the executive position in some situations.

Though many other countries backed the move, it didn’t go anywhere.

Guaidó in 2023 left Venezuela for the United States.

Maduro has portrayed the events as a symbol of his strength and American weakness, as per the newspaper.

Government officials from Brazil, Colombia and Mexico have been in constant communication with Maduro’s administration to convince him that he must show the vote tally sheets from Sunday’s election and allow impartial verification, a Brazilian government said on Thursday.

The officials have told Venezuela’s government that showing the data is the only way to dispel any doubt in the results, said the Brazilian official, who asked not be identified.

A Mexican official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the three governments have been discussing the issue with Venezuela but did not provide details. Earlier, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said he planned to speak to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Gustavo Petro of Colombia, and that his government believed it was important that the electoral tallies be made public.

Later on Thursday, the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico issued a joint statement calling on Venezuela’s electoral authorities “to move forward expeditiously and publicly release” detailed voting data, but they did not confirm any backroom diplomatic efforts to persuade Maduro’s government to publish the vote tallies.

“The fundamental principle of popular sovereignty must be respected through impartial verification of the results,” they said in the statement.

Opposition leader Machado – who was barred from running for president – and González addressed a huge rally of their supporters in the capital, Caracas, on Tuesday, but they have not been seen in public since.

In an op-ed published on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Machado said she was “hiding, fearing for my life, my freedom, and that of my fellow countrymen”. She reasserted that the opposition has physical evidence that Maduro lost the election and urged the international community to intervene.

“We have voted Mr Maduro out,” she wrote. “Now it is up to the international community to decide whether to tolerate a demonstrably illegitimate government.”

Machado later posted a video on social media calling on supporters to gather on Saturday morning across the country.

On Wednesday, Maduro asked Venezuela’s highest court to conduct an audit of the election, but that request drew almost immediate criticism from foreign observers who said the court is too close to the government to produce an independent review.

It wasn’t clear if Maduro’s first concession to demands for more transparency was the result of the discussions with Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Venezuela’s president confirmed during a news conference on Wednesday that he had spoken to Petro about it.

On Thursday, the court accepted Maduro’s request for an audit and ordered him, González and the eight other candidates who participated in the presidential election to appear before the justices on Friday.

With inputs from agencies