Even before Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday, it was entirely predictable that Nicolás Maduro would declare victory and that the opposition would call the election a sham, as before. So it came to pass. With most of the vote counted, the government-controlled electoral authority said that the incumbent president had taken 51% of votes while his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia, had won 44%. The opposition say that they have voting tallies proving otherwise, and that Mr González is president-elect: “The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened,” he said.
Two things have changed. The first is that there has been a widespread rejection of Mr Maduro’s disastrous reign, even in impoverished areas that were previously strongholds of the Chavismo movement he inherited. Their residents have had enough of the economic and humanitarian catastrophe that has left an estimated 19 million people without adequate healthcare and nutrition, and no longer buy his explanation that it’s all the fault of others. US sanctions have exacerbated the crisis, but his government is corrupt and incompetent as well as brutal. Mr Maduro may blame the extreme right for the protests and clashes now seen on the streets, but he knows that he’s lost supporters on whom he once counted.
