Nicolás Maduro wins Venezuela presidential polls, US says, ‘seriously concerned’

Venezuela’s opposition declared victory in Sunday’s presidential election, setting the stage for a confrontation with the government, which had already announced President Nicolás Maduro as the winner.
In his initial comments, opposition candidate Edmundo González asserted, “The Venezuelans and the entire world know what happened.”
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claimed that González’s victory margin was “overwhelming,” based on voting data from campaign representatives monitoring approximately 40% of ballot boxes across the country, AP reported.
The National Electoral Council, which is dominated by Maduro loyalists, initially reported that Maduro won 51% of the vote compared to 44% for González.
However, the Council did not disclose the results from each of the 30,000 polling stations nationwide, only promising to release them in the “coming hours,” which has hindered efforts to verify the results.
Meanwhile, foreign leaders have refrained from recognizing the election results.
Leftist leader and Chilean President Gabriel Boric expressed skepticism calling the results —”hard to believe”. “We won’t recognize any result that is not verifiable.”
El régimen de Maduro debe entender que los resultados que publica son difíciles de creer. La comunidad internacional y sobre todo el pueblo venezolano, incluyendo a los millones de venezolanos en el exilio, exigimos total transparencia de las actas y el proceso, y que veedores…
“We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Japan.
“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,” Blinken said.
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Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves rejected results declaring incumbent Nicolas Maduro the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election, calling them “fraudulent.”
“The government of Costa Rica rejects categorically the proclamation of Nicolas Maduro as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which we consider fraudulent,” Chaves said in a post on X.
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The delay in announcing the election results—six hours after the polls were scheduled to close—suggested a significant internal debate within the government on how to proceed, especially after Maduro’s opponents had claimed victory early in the evening. When Maduro eventually appeared to celebrate the results, he accused unspecified foreign adversaries of attempting to hack the voting system.
Born in Caracas, Nicolás Maduro is a self-declared Marxist and Christian. As a young man, he became a union leader for workers on the Caracas metro and travelled to communist Cuba in the 1980s for political education, AFP reported.
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Nicolás Maduro first rose to power as Hugo Chávez’s handpicked successor, despite reservations within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). After Chávez’s death from cancer, Maduro narrowly won his first election in 2013. Since then, he has navigated one crisis after another, ruling with an iron fist and consolidating his power as conditions for the average Venezuelan worsened.
The country has been plagued by a severe economic crisis, characterized by rampant inflation and critical shortages, exacerbated by the collapse of an oil boom due to plummeting global crude prices.
As president, Maduro has faced numerous threats, including a failed 2018 drone attack laden with explosives that injured several soldiers. He has managed to withstand international sanctions and the non-recognition of his 2018 re-election by dozens of nations by tightening his grip on the judiciary, legislature, military, and other state institutions.
Maduro has also maintained critical political and economic alliances with China, Russia, and other autocratic regimes, which have been crucial in keeping Venezuela barely afloat. To deflect responsibility for the country’s dire situation, he has perpetuated Chávez’s anti-American rhetoric, accusing the United States of attempting to assassinate him and blaming Western nations for the destruction of Venezuela’s once-thriving economy.
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Venezuela is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged human rights violations. Despite the country’s ongoing turmoil, President Nicolás Maduro has demonstrated a keen understanding of realpolitik.
Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and once boasted Latin America’s most advanced economy. But it entered into a free fall after Maduro took the helm. Plummeting oil prices, widespread shortages and hyperinflation that soared past 130,000% led first to social unrest and then mass emigration.
Last year, he secured a relaxation of US sanctions and other concessions by agreeing to hold elections this year. However, he later reneged on these commitments, leading to the reinstatement of sanctions in April. Nevertheless, Washington is allowing oil companies like Chevron and Repsol to apply for individual licenses to continue operations in Venezuela.
(With inputs from agencies)