Venezuela’s disputed election

Why might important Latin American political leaders with solid records as democratic leaders be reluctant to join in the criticism from the US and the Global North over Venezuela’s recent election?

The last 200 years of US relations with Latin America provide lots of possible reasons. Some of the classic moments just since the Second World War include Guatemala 1954, the War on Drugs (the poisonous gift that keeps on producing new problems), Brazil 1964, Chile 1974, Argentina 1976, Nicaragua and the Contras 1979ff., Grenada 1983, Panama 1989, Honduras 2017, Paraguay 2017, to name a few examples. For Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic – pick pretty much any year.

There is a famous saying attributed (at least apocryphally) to Mexican President and sometime dictator Porfirio Díaz: “Pobre México, tan lejos de Dios, tan cerca de Estados Unidos”. (Poor Mexico, so far away from God, so close to the United States). The other Latin American countries could apply a similar concept to themselves.

Venezuela has the mixed blessing and curse of being a petrostate in addition to being in the area that the US considers its back yard. Venezuela has the largest crude oil reserves in the world. So the US is particularly sensitive to governments in Caracas that it doesn’t consider sufficiently deferential. For Venezuela, the dominance of oil in its economy means that it attracts people from other fields, notably agriculture, which has been seriously limited by the workforce drain to the oil industry. It also means that Venezuela is particularly sensitive to swings in energy prices.

In other words, it has been very disruptive to society in many ways. And, of course, the pressure and opportunities for corruption have been huge.

The 2024 election

In the present case, it’s not that Nicolás Maduro has swung from being a legitimate successor to a President elected under dubious circumstances back to being a pure devoted democrat. As the left-leaning NACLA reports:

It was already foreseen that it would be very difficult for the Venezuelan government, with all its accumulated military and institutional power and threatened by increased sanctions from the United States and Europe, to give up its mandate without guarantees. However, the resumption of negotiations at the beginning of July between Caracas and Washington and the progression of the presidential campaign without any serious incidents opened a halo of hope that the Venezuelan people could settle their conflicts in a democratic manner.

Since the 2013 presidential elections, in which the current President Nicolás Maduro won by a narrow margin, there have not been presidential elections in Venezuela in which all political actors participated. In 2018, the opposition called for abstention from the electoral process and only some marginal parties from its orbit were encouraged to participate, resulting in an abstention of 54 percent.

We are now faced with the worst scenario because the two main candidates, Maduro and Edmundo González Urrutia, are in their own way ignoring the electoral process and foreclosing avenues for a democratic resolution. [my emphasis] (1)

The Mexican President AMLO was restrained in his initial reaction to the Venezuelan vote:

Manuel López Obrador [AMLO] was one of those who has expressed that he is waiting for the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela to release the complete results of the election, and speaking out against "interference" in Venezuela: "Don't the governments of other small, medium or large countries have things to do? What should they be meddling in the affairs of other countries? Why the interference? What does the OAS [US-dominated Organization of American States] have to meddle into?" he asked in criticizing. (2)

The progressive, left-leaning governments of AMLO (Mexico), Lula da Silva (Brazil), and Gustavo Petro (Colombia) have all reacted cautiously to the Venezuelan election: “The three countries … said in a joint statement that electoral controversies should be settled through "institutional" means and that the principle of popular sovereignty should be respected through "impartial verification" of the results.” (3)

Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s left-leaning government declined to recognize Maduro as the winter of the election. Maduro’s government expelled Chile’s diplomats from the country in response.

After Sunday's presidential election in Venezuela, in which Nicolás Maduro emerged as the winner without showing the minutes [voting result] until today, Chile was one of the first countries in the world to question the results and demand transparency. The left-wing president Gabriel Boric did so, through a message on his X account, followed by a statement from his chancellor Alberto van Klaveren (Amsterdam, 75 years old). The position had almost immediate consequences, and took the Chilean authorities by surprise, since on Monday the Chavista [Maduro’s] regime ordered the withdrawal of the diplomatic corps in Caracas and took the same measure with the embassy staff in Santiago, leaving the more than 700,000 Venezuelans who have migrated [to Chile] adrift. When Maduro's ambassador, Arévalo Méndez, left the place, in the eastern sector of the Chilean capital, he shouted: "Death to fascism!"

So far, Chile has maintained its position. And on Saturday, when Boric received his ambassador, the socialist Jaime Gazmuri, who had just landed from Caracas, at [the Presidential palace] La Moneda, he endorsed it: "We do not recognize Maduro's declared victory and we will not validate any result that is not verified by independent international organizations." (4)

Former Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a left-Peronist and a lifelong democratic activist, made a presentation Saturday to a Mexican conference on “Realidad política y electoral de América Latina” (“Political and Electoral Reality in Latin America”), sponsored by a think tank, INFP Morena, which is associated with the Morena party of AMLO and the incoming President, Claudia Sheinbaum. (Scheinbaum will the first woman President of Mexico and its first Jewish President.) (5)

She rehearsed the history of the “Pink Tide” governments of the 2000s and 2010s, one of which was her own. Her emphasis in the presentation was on what is sometimes called the Patria Grande (Great Homeland) vision, a concept coined by the Argentine Socialist leader Manuel Ugarte (1875-1951) that emphasizes political and social solidarity among Latin American nations, including cooperative action in relation to its sometimes-over-demanding North American neighbor. (Although I didn’t catch any specific mention of “Patria Grande” in her presentation.) She stressed the need to reject the dominant neoliberal economic paradigm and the need for governments that are popular y nacional, by which she means democratic governments that defend the national interest against foreign domination.

During the talk, she addressed Maduro’s government: “’Pido por el legado de Chávez que se publiquen las actas’, exortó Cristina Kirchner y llamó a despojarse de ‘las simpatías y las antipatías’.” ("'I ask in the name of the legacy of [Hugo] Chávez that the minutes be published,' Cristina Kirchner said and called for getting past 'sympathies and antipathies’.") In other words, show the actual results of the election, whatever they are, so they can be independently verified.

She also dealt with other issues for democracy in Latin America, including the recent prominence of “lawfare” against democratic politicians in Brazil and Argentina. To the extent that autocratic/authoritarian movements in democratic countries influence each other on undermining the rule of law, it’s worth noting that using highly politicized courts has been a key element in Viktor Orbán’s electoral autocracy in Hungary and in Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing fight to politicize the normal Israel. And, of course, in the Trumpista approach to the courts in the US, which has already been far too successful.

And she got in a dig at the US hypocrisy in its approach to the so-called rules-based international order, calling out the US for supporting British colonial control of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands.

The Carter Center, which has a very good record on election monitoring, was invited by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) to monitor last Sunday’s election. In a statement of July 30, they reported:

Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.

The Carter Center cannot verify or corroborate the results of the election declared by the National Electoral Council (CNE), and the electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles.

Venezuela's electoral process did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages and violated numerous provisions of its own national laws. The election took place in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organizations, and the media. Throughout the electoral process, the CNE demonstrated a clear bias in favor of the incumbent.

Voter registration was hurt by short deadlines, relatively few places of registration, and minimal public information. Citizens abroad faced excessive legal requirements to register, some of which appeared to be arbitrary. This effectively disenfranchised most of the migrant population, resulting in very low numbers of voters abroad.

The registration of parties and candidates also did not meet international standards. Over the past few years, several opposition parties have had their registrations changed to leaders who favor the government. This influenced the nomination of some opposition candidates. Importantly, the registration of the candidacy of the main opposition forces was subject to arbitrary decisions of the CNE, without respecting basic legal principles. [my emphasis] (6)

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken issued a statement declaring, “We congratulate [opposition leader] Edmundo González Urrutia on his successful campaign.” (6) I won’t try to parse the nuances of that. But it does strike me that “successful campaign” is not quite the same as “winning the election.” That may just be cautious wording based on the fact that the full results have not been published and independently verified.

The US stance against Maduro’s government

For US policy, the question is whether the government continues to pursue a regime change strategy in Venezuela to impose a more US-friendly regime or actually works to encourage democratic processes there without making US oil interests the overriding factor. The history of US regime change projects in Latin America is long and ugly. And promoting democracy has never been its main objective.

The tale of Juan Guaidó, which the Trump Administration recognized as the legitimate President of Venezuela even though he was not at all in control of the government was ugly. But it was also one of the most farcical incidents in the entire history of US blundering foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. (Or anywhere, for that matter!) Maduro’s government pursued a strategy toward him that was exactly dictatorial. Guaidó was allowed to be in Venezuela, free and able to conduct opposition activities. In other words, Maduro’s government let the leader who was actively supported by the US government as the legitimate leader of the country run around free, taking part in political activity. Not exactly what most people would imagine to be the approach of a dictatorship of the kind the US alleged Maduro’s government to be.

That part was a clever strategy by Maduro. He was saying in effect, “Look, this guy is actively supporting a US campaign to overthrow our government. But we’re letting him run around freely inside the country while he is actively working to subvert the current government in open collusion with an unfriendly foreign power. Do you really think we’re worried that this clown can rally a political movement to overthrow the government?”

As Jeff Wallenfeldt describes it from the stereotypically stodgy-but-generally-reliable Encyclopedia Britannica puts it:

Having gained control of significant Venezuelan financial assets abroad — most notably a Federal Reserve Bank of New York account that held $342 million — Guaidó’s parallel government spent at least $130 million in 2020 and 2021, some $70 million of which was dedicated to various social programs, including about $19 million in payments to health care workers. Nonetheless, Guaidó was criticized in some quarters for a lack of transparency in his governance, and he largely failed in his efforts to unite the opposition as it began to prepare for the 2024 national elections. In December 2022 the National Assembly, which continued to function despite the expiration of its official term, voted 72–29 (with 8 abstentions) to remove Guaidó from office. The Assembly also voted to dissolve his government and replace it with a three-member all-women leadership team led by Dinorah Figuera, a surgeon living in exile in Spain. [my emphasis] (7)

In the widely-used categorization by the V-Dem Institute, Venezuela in 2023 ranked as an “electoral autocracy,” (8) a rating also shared by Russia and Ukraine. Hungary is the only EU country in that category. V-Dem rates Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico as “electoral democracies.”

In the Latin American edition of the democratic-socialist Jacobin journal, Valerio Arcary on August 1 took a Mugwump position on the validity of the officially announced voting results:

The CNE (National Electoral Council), a body subordinate to the government, announced that Maduro had won the elections and, the day after the elections, formalized his selection. The extreme-right opposition is denouncing fraud and declares that it won 70% of the votes. While it is fair to demand that the National Electoral Council publish the final result of 100% of the votes and publish the tally sheets, the burden of proof for fraud falls on those who question the fairness of the count. Mere suspicion is not enough. So far, no categorical evidence has been presented. While it is essential that all data be made public, the assumption of fraud by the far-right opposition campaign should not in itself be sufficient to postpone indefinitely the recognition of Maduro's victory.

It is not necessary to praise the regime, which is authoritarian and has repressed both the reactionary forces that want to overthrow it and silenced and outlawed leftist currents that rely on the working class, in order to admit Maduro's victory. Although Bonapartist [left-populist with an authoritarian bent], the regime has an indisputable social base. Although the PSUV [Maduro's party] is monolithic, and Nicolás Maduro is a caudillo, even a bit of a caricature, they have an unquestionable social grounding. Moreover, it is foreseeable that, on some scale, a vote that was not "Maduro" but anti-fascist and anti-imperialist would benefit Maduro. The country is socially and politically fractured. The neo-fascist opposition also has a social base, and has attracted anti-Maduro votes that are not far-right, and has demonstrated in the streets that it has support. This support should come as no surprise, given the economic siege that has strangled Venezuela, at varying levels of intensity, over the past ten years. [my emphasis] (98)

I’m not sure what “burden of proof” would mean in that context. Please tell that to the American Trumpistas who are still repeating that they really won the 2020 Presidential election.

So, yes, if someone is contesting announced election results, they have to make convincing arguments both legally and politically. But democratic governments also have a responsibility to show that they followed credible procedures and adhered to election law. The Carter Center report quoted above gives a number of the legitimate questions about the Venezuelan election. It’s also the case that it would be exceptionally unlikely that the current governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia would support an American-directed coup or regime-change operation in Venezuela – an exceptionally touchy matter for Latin American governments! – they are all expressing open skepticism about the claimed election results.

Again: Venezuela has the largest crude oil reserves of any country in the world. That means for the foreseeable future, there will always be oligarchs and imperialist-minded officials who will be tempted to seriously meddle in Venezuelan politics - international law and democratic principles be damned. (11)

Notes:

(1) López, Ociel Alí (2024): Has the Wolf Arrived in Venezuela? NACLA 08/01/2024. <https://nacla.org/has-wolf-arrived-venezuela> (Accessed: 2024-02-08). “The wolf” is a current common reference to fascism, though the association is surely unfair to wolves.

(2) Micheletto, Karina (2024): Cristina Kirchner habla en México, en medio del delicado contexto regional. Página/12 08/02/2024. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/757096-cristina-kirchner-habla-en-mexico-en-medio-del-delicado-cont> (Accessed: 2024-02-08). My translation from Spanish.

(3) Venezuela: López Obrador, Petro y Lula piden "cautela". Página/12 08/03/2024. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/757124-venezuela-lopez-obrador-petro-y-lula-piden-cautela> (Accessed: 2024-02-08). My translation from Spanish.

(4) Sanjueza, Ana María (2024): Alberto van Klaveren: “Chile está disponible para desempeñar un papel útil de mediación frente a la crisis venezolana”. El País 08/04/2024. <https://elpais.com/chile/2024-08-04/alberto-van-klaverenchile-esta-disponible-para-desempenar-un-papel-util-de-mediacion-frente-a-la-crisis-venezolana.html#> (Accessed: 2024-03-08).

(5) Cristina Kirchner hoy en México: así fue su discurso, minuto a minuto. Página/12 08/03/2024. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/757483-cristina-kirchner-hoy-en-mexico> (Accessed: 2024-03-08). My translation from Spanish.

DISCURSO completo de CRISTINA KIRCHNER en el CURSO “REALIDAD POLÍTICA y ELECTORAL de AMÉRICA LATINA”. C5N YouTube channel 08/03/2024 <https://youtu.be/eRRDtool6zg?si=qsN2KWhmxZj3lSgT> (Accessed: 2024-04-08).

(6) Carter Center Statement on Venezuela Election. The Carter Center 07/30/2024. <https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html> (Accessed: 2024-03-08).

(7) Blinken, Antony (2024): Assessing the Results of Venezuela’s Presidential Election. Press Statement, US Dept. of State 08/01/2024. https://www.state.gov/assessing-the-results-of-venezuelas-presidential-election/> (Accessed: 2024-04-08).

(8) Wallenfeldt, Jeff (2024): Juan Guaidó. Encyclopedia Britannica 07/24//2024. <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Juan-Guaido> (Accessed: 2024-03-08).

(9) Democracy Report 2024: Democracy Winning and Losing at the Ballot, 17. V-Dem Institute (University of Gothenburg) March 2024. <https://v-dem.net/documents/43/v-dem_dr2024_lowres.pdf>

(10) Arcary, Valerio (2024): La batalla por Venezuela. Jacobin 08/01/2024. <https://jacobinlat.com/2024/08/01/la-batalla-por-venezuela/> (Accessed: 2024-03-08). Arcary’s article opens with a quote from Leon Trotsky. The Spanish Jacobin is published in Argentina, where Trotsky’s influence on left theories seems to be more common than in the US or Europe. Although in my admittedly limited observation, it doesn’t seem to have the sectarian edge that so often seems to appear in American and European varieties.

(11) Sylvia, Ronald & Danopoulos, Constantine (2003): The Chávez phenomenon: political change in Venezuela. Third World Quarterly 24:1, 63–76. <https://library.fes.de/libalt/journals/swetsfulltext/15630735.pdf>

Emersberger, Joe & Podur, Justin (2021): Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela. New York: Monthly Review Press.