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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Lili Bayer

Venezuela presidential election: result met with suspicion abroad – as it happened

European Union Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Josep Borrell Antony Blinken Edmundo González Urrutia Hugo Chávez José Manuel Albares Sam Jones Foreign Policy
Venezuelan citizens gather near the Venezuelan consulate in Santiago, Chile, during the presidential elections.
Venezuelan citizens gather near the Venezuelan consulate in Santiago, Chile, during the presidential elections. Photograph: Matías Basualdo/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

Summary of the day

  • Nicolás Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election by the government-controlled electoral authority.

  • Venezuela’s electoral council claimed Maduro had won with 51.21% of votes compared with 44.2% for his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.

  • Independent observers had described the election as the most arbitrary in recent years.

  • The US vice president, Kamala Harris, said “the will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the many challenges, we will continue to work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela.”

  • Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, said “we have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

  • Luis Lacalle Pou, the president of Uruguay, said: “Not like that! It was an open secret that they were going to ‘win’ whatever the real results were.”

  • Colombia’s foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, called for a “total vote count” in Venezuela, with “its verification and independent audit to be carried out as soon as possible”.

  • Argentina’s populist, firebrand president, Javier Milei, was characteristically insistent. “GET OUT, MADURO, YOU DICTATOR!!!” he wrote on X.

  • Brazil’s only observer of the Venezuelan election, Celso Amorim, the top advisor for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated that the Brazilian government will only comment on the results after reviewing the records.

  • Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has stressed that “the people of Venezuela voted on the future of their country peacefully” and “their will must be respected.”

  • The British foreign office said “we are concerned by allegations of serious irregularities” and “we call for the swift and transparent publication of full, detailed results to ensure that the outcome reflects the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

  • Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, congratulated Maduro, and the Kremlin said that Russia was working to deepen its ties with Venezuela.

  • Ione Belarra, who leads Spain’s far-left, anti-austerity Podemos party, has called for people to respect Sunday’s result, saying “the right only goes along with democracy when it wins and that is unacceptable.”

Mike Pence, the former US vice president, has said Joe Biden “must restore sanctions immediately and rally the free world until Maduro is Gone and Libertad is Restored.”

Some political groups in the European parliament have also weighed in on their concerns about Venezuela’s election.

The Socialists and Democrats’ Iratxe García said “transparency is the essence of democracy.”


Nicola Procaccini, from the European Conservatives and Reformists, said “it is highly curious that Nicolás Maduro should be the winner of the elections in Venezuela when the polls blatantly predicted the opposite.”

Updated

Here’s an image from Caracas today.

The Associated Press reports that normally bustling western Caracas awoke as if it was a holiday, with several businesses shuttered.

Eating a breakfast on a bench, 28-year-old Deyvid Cadenas told the AP he felt cheated.

“The majority voted for the opposition,” said Cadenas. “I don’t believe yesterday’s results.”

“I’m so happy,” said Merling Fernández, a 31-year-old bank employee. “This is the path toward a new Venezuela,” added Fernández, holding back tears. “We are all tired of this yoke.”

Brazil’s only observer of the Venezuelan election, Celso Amorim, the top advisor for president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, stated that the Brazilian government will only comment on the results after reviewing the records.

A former foreign minister, Amorim has been in Caracas since Friday and observed the voting yesterday.

In an interview with the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, he mentioned that he is still familiarising himself with what happened: “The main issue is transparency.”

He added: “The (Brazilian) government continues to monitor the situation until we have the necessary data to make an informed decision (on whether or not to recognise the results), as with any election.

“It must be transparent. I’m not necessarily questioning what is being said, but the government was supposed to provide the records from which this number is derived, and that has not yet happened.”

The Brazilian Electoral Court had planned to send two additional observers to monitor the votes yesterday but abandoned the plan after Nicolás Maduro claimed last week, without evidence, that the election in Brazil is not auditable.

Reuters reports that Edison Research published an exit poll showing opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia had won 65% of the vote, while Nicolás Maduro won 31%.

Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, posted on X that the country “joins the widespread rejection of the electoral result in Venezuela” and that it “will take action both individually and collectively in favour of Venezuelan democracy.”

Once an ally of Nicolás Maduro, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, has yet to comment on the election results in Venezuela.

But his foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, posted on X a call for a “total vote count” in Venezuela, with “its verification and independent audit to be carried out as soon as possible”.

“The international community and the Venezuelan people hope that transparency and electoral guarantees prevail for all sectors. It is important to clear any doubts about the results. This means that international observers and monitors should present their conclusions about the process,” wrote Murillo.

Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, is now calling for the permanent council of the Organization of American States to meet to discuss the situation in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s election is featuring in US campaign rhetoric.

‘Hard to believe’: Venezuela election result met with suspicion abroad

Nicolás Maduro’s apparent re-election as Venezuela’s president has been met with scepticism, suspicion and calls for a transparent and detailed breakdown of the vote in Sunday’s controversial poll.

Although the results, released by the government-controlled electoral authority, were immediately hailed by Maduro’s allies in Latin America, they drew a guarded and often accusatory response from others in the region and farther afield.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Washington had “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people”.

He said the international community was watching the vote “very closely” and would react accordingly.

An even more direct response came from Luis Lacalle Pou, the president of Uruguay.

“Not like that! It was an open secret that they were going to ‘win’ whatever the real results were,” he said on X. “The process, right up to the day of the election and the count itself, was clearly corrupt. You can’t recognise a win if you can’t trust the forms and mechanisms used to bring it about.”

Argentina’s populist, firebrand president, Javier Milei, was characteristically insistent.

“GET OUT, MADURO, YOU DICTATOR!!!” he wrote on X. “Venezuelans chose to put an end to Nicolás Maduro’s communist dictatorship. The data shows a crushing opposition victory and the world is waiting for the defeat of years of socialism, misery, decadence and death to be recognised.”

Milei said Argentina would not recognise “another fraud” and said he hoped Venezuela’s armed forces would “defend democracy and the will of the people”.

Read the full story here.

Germany’s foreign ministry has said that “the announced election results are not enough to dispel doubts about the vote count in Venezuela.”

“We call for the publication of detailed results for all polling stations & access to all voting and election documents for opposition and observers,” it added.

Bernardo Arévalo, the president of Guatemala, has said that Venezuela deserves transparent results.

“We receive the results announced by the CNE with many doubts,” he said.

Meanwhile in the US, several members of Congress have spoken out about the election in Venezuela.

The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has said that “the Kingdom of the Netherlands is worried about the current developments and calls for full transparency in the electoral process and the handling of results.”

The vote – and its results – were being closely monitored across the Canary islands, which is home to an estimated 100,000 Venezuelans and a part of Spain with such tight migratory ties to the Caribbean nation that Venezuela is nicknamed the “eighth Canary island”.

“The links across the Atlantic are so strong that you’ll find a Canarian in any corner of Venezuela and a Venezuelan in any corner of the Canaries,” said Agustín Rodríguez, the president of the UCVE Canarian-Venezuelan Union.

Rodríguez said excitement was high even though a lot of exiled Venezuelans would be unable to vote in Sunday’s election because the electoral register was out of date or because they had been unable to register to vote.

But for all worries over how fair and transparent the election would be, he added: “People are really hopeful here.”

UK 'concerned by allegations of serious irregularities' in Venezuela: statement

The British foreign office has issued a statement on the situation in Venezuela calling for the publication of detailed results.

We are concerned by allegations of serious irregularities in the counting and declared results of Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela.

We call for the swift and transparent publication of full, detailed results to ensure that the outcome reflects the votes of the Venezuelan people.

Compare and contrast Ione Belarra’s comments with this from Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party:

Yesterday Venezuela voted massively in favour of peace and a transition to freedom.

There are solid reasons to think that the result announced by the regime doesn’t reflect how the people voted. That’s why we, along with the international community, are demanding an audit of the process … Let’s defend democracy.

Among the many international figures weighing in on the situation in Venezuela was the US vice president, Kamala Harris.

“The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected. Despite the many challenges, we will continue to work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela,” she said.

There is lots of interest in Venezuela’s election in Spain.

Ione Belarra, who leads the far-left, anti-austerity Podemos party, has called for people to respect Sunday’s result, saying:

More than a thousand international observers have taken part in the Venezuelan election. The people have spoken and their will should be respected. The right only goes along with democracy when it wins and that is unacceptable.

Gabriel Boric, the president of Chile, has said that “the Maduro regime must understand that the results it publishes are difficult to believe.”

“The international community and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency,” he added.

Vicente Fox, a former president of Mexico, has said that “the people already decided” in Venezuela.

Sam Jones, the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, recently spoke to Venezuelans abroad to see how they were feeling ahead of yesterday’s vote.

A hint of the emotion felt by many of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans resident in Spain was evident in one of the placards on display at a pro-change rally in Madrid the Sunday before last.

“La única cola que quiero hacer es para patearte el culo Maduro!” it read – “The only queue I want to join is the one to kick your arse, Maduro!”

Thabata Molina, a Venezuelan journalist who has been in Spain for three years after spending seven years in Panama, said the demonstration showed the widespread desire for a major political shift back home.

“I think Venezuelans who want a change in their country are really excited right now because it feels like the first time in a long time that we’ve had a real hope for change,” she said.

“It’s not just the people who’ve always been against the regime; there are now a lot of people who were chavistas for years but who are now feeling hopeless and impatient for a drastic change that will improve things in Venezuela.”

According to Tomás Paéz, a university professor who is the president of the Venezuelan Diaspora Observatory, Spain is estimated to be home to around 600,000 of the 9 million people who have left Venezuela over the past 25 years and headed to more than 90 countries.

Paéz said many people abroad still had trouble understanding what had happened in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, pointing out that the country’s economy had contracted by 80% between 2014 and 2021.

“It’s really difficult to explain what’s been going on in Venezuela,” he said. “As a university professor in Venezuela, I wouldn’t be able to earn more than $50 a month – and the cost of a month’s basic food for a family is $400.”

Sunday’s election, said Paéz, had raised hopes that “the country’s deterioration could be brought to an end and the process of free reconstruction begun”.

José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, has called for respecting the will of Venezuela’s voters.

'Serious concerns' about Venezuela results: Blinken says international community watching 'very closely'

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has expressed concern that the announced results in Venezuela do not reflect the votes.

Speaking in Tokyo, he said:

We applaud the Venezuelan people for their participation in the July 28th presidential election.

We commend their courage and commitment to democracy in the face of repression and in the face of adversity.

We’ve seen the announcement just a short while ago by the Venezuelan electoral commission.

We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.

It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently, that election officials immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay, and that the electoral authorities publish the detailed tabulation of votes.

The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.

The Kremlin said today that Russia was working to deepen its ties with Venezuela, Reuters reported.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has congratulated Nicolás Maduro.

'Their will must be respected': EU calls for transparency in Venezuela vote

Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, has stressed that “the people of Venezuela voted on the future of their country peacefully” and “their will must be respected.”

“Ensuring full transparency in the electoral process, including detailed counting of votes and access to voting records at polling stations, is vital,” he added.

Maduro declared winner by Venezuela's government-controlled authority

Nicolás Maduro has been declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election by the government-controlled electoral authority.

The result appeared to dash opposition hopes of ending his authoritarian, socialist rule after 25 years, and which was immediately challenged by rivals and several governments in the region and beyond.

After a six-hour delay in releasing the results of Sunday’s poll sparked an outpouring of international concern, Venezuela’s electoral council claimed Maduro had won with 51.21% of votes compared with 44.2% for his rival, the former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia.

Independent observers had described the election as the most arbitrary in recent years, even by the standards of an authoritarian regime that started with Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chávez.

González’s campaign had generated a rare wave of optimism among millions of disillusioned citizens after a wretched decade during which the economy of the country with the world’s largest oil reserves contracted by 80% and nearly 8 million people – almost a third of Venezuela’s population – fled abroad.

Read the full story here, by Patricia Torres in Caracas and Sam Jones in Madrid

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