Nicolás Maduro achieves third presidential term in Venezuela

Caracas. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro won a third term in office in Sunday’s presidential election, winning 51.20 percent of the vote, followed by opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez with 44.2 percent, the National Electoral Council announced today, after 80 percent of the votes had been counted. It said it was a “convincing and irreversible trend” and pointed out that the turnout was 59 percent.

In the early hours of Monday, CNE head Elvis Amoroso denounced that the data transmission system was the target of an “attack,” which he asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate.

Opposition member María Corina Machado, who did not recognize the official data, proclaimed González as “president-elect.” She claimed, without providing evidence, that the candidate of the Plataforma Unitaria alliance won with 70 percent of the votes, and Maduro obtained 30 percent, according to more than 40 percent of the records in her possession. She added that they won in “all the states.”

In a much shorter speech, Gonzalez said that “our message of reconciliation and peace remains valid. Our struggle continues. We will not rest until the will of the people of Venezuela is respected.”

From Tokyo, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “we have serious concerns that the announced result does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people, while Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chávez claimed, without evidence, that the election was “fraudulent,” and the Peruvian government, headed by de facto president Dina Boluarte, announced that it will not recognize Maduro’s administration and called its ambassador in Caracas for consultations.

Before the results were announced, far-right candidate Javier Milei said on X that Argentina will not recognize a government led by Maduro, asserting that “the data announces a crushing victory for the opposition.”

His Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric, said that the CNE figures “are difficult to believe” and threatened: “We will not recognize results that are not verifiable.” Maduro, who has been in power for eleven years, after winning an election following the death of Chavez, told a crowd gathered in front of Miraflores Palace that the result is “the triumph of the dignity of the people of Venezuela. They could not overcome the sanctions. They could not overcome the threats. They will never overcome the dignity of the people of Venezuela. Fascism in Venezuela, the land of Bolivar and Chavez, will not pass away, neither today nor ever.”

The president, who was called by former Cuban President Rapul Castro to congratulate him, added that his “first thought is to the father creator God who is in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thank you for giving this victory to the people who deserve it.”

After recalling that yesterday was the 70th anniversary of Chávez’s birth, he said: “It is your triumph, long live Chávez. Chávez lives and the country continues.”

He called for “respect for the popular will” and stressed that “this is not the first time that they have tried to undermine the peace of the republic” by emphasizing that “we have to see which country in the world, after receiving 930 criminal sanctions, after having suffered what we have suffered, which country calls for elections.”

He referred to the fact that there was a daily campaign on all social networks “to favor the devils and the demonesses” and, like the CNE, he denounced a “massive hack” of the data transmission system, because “they, the devils and the demonesses, did not want” the official results that gave him the victory to be disclosed.

He said, without giving details, that “we already know from which country” the hacking came.

Referring to the accusations of fraud made by the opposition even before the election day, he said: “This is not the first time that they have accused fraud, I have seen this story several times. It is the story of the extreme right. They tried today to prevent the results from being made public,” and warned: “We will not allow a spiral of violence.”

Responding to the Argentine president, he said: “I tell Milei, you won’t last a round with me, you cowardly bug… You’re a complete fascist, this people has already said no to savage capitalism and no to fascism… How can you take seriously a fascist who enjoys making the people of Argentina suffer?”

Maduro was playing for his re-election and the continuity of a political project that the late Hugo Chávez started 25 years ago.

Before the results were known, Foreign Minister Yván Gil posted a government statement in which it was stated: “Venezuela denounces and alerts the world about an intervention operation against the electoral process, our right to free self-determination and the sovereignty of our country, by a group of foreign governments and powers.” He assured that “officials from Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and the Dominican Republic together with a group of ultra-right hitmen specialized in destabilizing governments in Latin America such as (former Colombian presidents) Iván Duque, (Argentine) Mauricio Macri, (Colombian) Andrés Pastrana, (Costa Rican) Óscar Arias, (Republican US senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott) intend to distort what has been expressed today in peace and with a civic spirit in our country, which is nothing other than the exercise of the people’s right to choose.”

Referring to opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who declared himself “legitimate president” and was recognized by the United States and its allies, the Venezuelan government said: “The same people who recognized a puppet in 2019 are trying to impose him today in 2024.

“This miserable and desperate operation is destined to fail because Venezuela is a free and sovereign country and will never accept impositions or blackmail, much less from foreign entities without morals and legality to attack our rights and our people,” he said.

The Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino López, said that the election day was “perfectly ordered and peaceful.” The Minister of Interior, Admiral Remigio Ceballos, dismissed the incidents, stressing that they were “minuscule” and did not affect the progress of the election.