Washington, DC – The United States has imposed new sanctions on Venezuelan judicial and election officials whom it accuses of helping President Nicolas Maduro certify his controversial election win earlier this year.
The penalties on Thursday targeted the leaders of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), as well as other Maduro allies who backed his claim to victory in the July 28 vote.
The US and several countries in the West and Latin America have rejected the results, citing a lack of transparency and allegations of voter fraud. Instead, the US said there was “overwhelming evidence” that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won the presidential race.
Thursday’s sanctions name officials in Venezuela’s military, intelligence sector and government who allegedly were “responsible for intensifying repression through intimidation, indiscriminate detentions and censorship” after the vote.
While the US Treasury Department described the measures as “decisive”, many of the Venezuelan officials sanctioned on Thursday were already under US penalties.
The sanctions, enforced by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), freeze the individuals’ assets in the US and prohibit Americans from engaging in financial transitions with them.
A senior US administration official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said that the sanctions should prompt officials aligned with Maduro to pursue “deeper reflection”.
“I would just say that for someone who is an official in Venezuela who participated either in the falsification of electoral results or in overseeing or committing acts of repression in Venezuela, when they see their name as an individual on the OFAC sanctions list, today is not a good day,” the official said.
But the Venezuelan government and large sectors of the country’s economy have been under heavy US sanctions for years, as a result of human rights concerns and alleged democratic backsliding. Washington’s approach has so far failed to topple Maduro.
In 2020, the US announced a $15m reward for information that would lead to the arrest of the Venezuelan president, after indicting him on “narco-terrorism” charges.
The July vote presented an opportunity for the Venezuelan opposition to test Maduro’s grip on power. Early polling showed Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, leading by a large margin.
However, the National Electoral Council — which critics say is closely aligned with Maduro — declared the incumbent president the winner shortly after the elections.
It claimed Maduro received 51 percent of the votes, though it did not release a breakdown of the results, as it had in the past.
The opposition was quick to refute the results, calling for the release of voting records across the country. It later said that Gonzalez comfortably won the elections based on voting data it had acquired.
The US and several Latin American countries — including those with left-wing leaders — have challenged Maduro’s victory and called on him to offer proof of his victory. Washington declared that Gonzalez had won, but it stopped short of labelling him as the president-elect.
Demonstrations erupted against Maduro after the vote, but opposition activists were unable to sustain a large protest movement amid a security crackdown. The human rights group Foro Penal has reported that, as of September 9, an estimated 1,658 people have been arrested following the election.
Another group, Monitor de Victimas, has documented 23 deaths related to the unrest.
Gonzalez, who faced an arrest warrant, fled to Spain on Sunday where he was granted asylum. On Thursday, he met with the country’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who has called on the Venezuelan government to release a full account of its voter tallies.
A former bus driver, Maduro rose to power after the death of left-wing mentor Hugo Chavez in 2013. His tenure has been marred by economic and political crises, as well as accusations of authoritarianism.
In 2019, the US and several of its allies in the Western Hemisphere recognised opposition leader Juan Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
That same year, Washington expanded the sweeping sanctions against Caracas, deepening Venezuela’s economic woes, which have prompted nearly eight million people to leave the country.
On Thursday, the US State Department imposed new visa restrictions on 16 Maduro allies.
“Rather than respecting the will of the Venezuelan people as expressed at the ballot box, Maduro and his representatives have falsely claimed victory while repressing and intimidating the democratic opposition in an illegitimate attempt to cling to power by force,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Earlier in September, the US administration seized Maduro’s personal plane from the Dominican Republic — a move that Caracas decried as “piracy”.
