On July 28, Venezuela held its national election. The most recent results released by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council say that the incumbent president, and successor to Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro received 51.95% of the vote versus 43.18% for the opposition candidate, Edmundo González. The opposition has countered with the claim that Gonzales defeated Maduro by a margin of 67% to 30%. The U.S. response to the outcome has been disorganized and confused.
What the official U.S. position on Venezuela’s election is seems to depend on which official speaks for the United States. Vice-President and presumptive presidential candidate Kamala Harris appeared to quickly recognize Maduro’s victory when she said less than half an hour after the polls closed that “The United States stands with the people of Venezuela who expressed their voice in today’s historic presidential election. The will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.”
The White House was less certain about the official results. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that “we have serious concerns that the result as announced does not reflect the will and the votes of the Venezuelan people.” He added that the White House would “hold judgement” until “the electoral authorities publish the full, detailed tabulation of votes.”
The State Department was less patient. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that “the announcement of results by the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) were deeply flawed, yielding an announced outcome that does not represent the will of the Venezuelan people.” He then concluded that González “received the most votes in this election by an insurmountable margin” and congratulated him on “his successful campaign.” Blinken then called for “respectful, peaceful transition.”
But then, four days later, a confused State Department walked back Blinken’s recognition of González. Responding to a question at a press conference for clarification on whether the U.S. was recognizing an interim president or just not recognizing Maduro, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller walked back the Secretary of State’s prior declaration, saying instead that “That’s not a step that we are taking today.”
The U.S. position is not only disorganized, it is overreach. Though the results of the election are of primary importance to the people of Venezuela, and though the determination of those results is an essential responsibility of the Venezuelan people, it is not the responsibility of the United States. The U.S. has not been handed the role of global election arbiter by anyone. The U.S. has no role to play in the Venezuelan people’s sovereign determination of the outcome of their election.
Nor has the U.S. earned the right to judge or comment on election interference. Not just because of their appalling record of regime changes globally, nor even because of their horrific history of coups in Latin America, but because of their long record of election interference and coups in Venezuela and, most relevantly, in the current Venezuelan election.
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez was briefly removed in a 2002 coup before the people of Venezuela reversed it and reinstalled him, “individuals and organizations understood to be actively involved in the brief ouster of the Chávez government” were admittedly receiving “training, institution building, and other support” from the United States. Officials in the Bush administration acknowledged that “they had discussed the removal of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez for months with military and civilian leaders from Venezuela.” And officials from the Organization of American States have revealed that “the US administration was not only aware the coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it.”
In 2019, when Maduro easily won re-election to a second term, the U.S. side stepped the result and recognized Juan Guaidó as the leader of Venezuela.
There is a difference in judgement on whether the current Venezuelan election was conducted fairly. Some independent observers, like the U.S.-based National Lawyers Guild, have called the election a “transparent, fair voting process with scrupulous attention to legitimacy;” others, like the Carter Center, have said that the election “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity.”
Again, deciding between the two is not America’s place. But the U.S. also not an objective observer. The U.S. has been a continuous and persistent bankroller of the Venezuelan opposition and influencer of the Venezuelan media. But most importantly, the U.S. has collectively held the people of Venezuela hostage. U.S. sanctions on Venezuela have played by far the largest role in interfering in and influencing Venezuela’s election. Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told me that the sanctions “prevent the country from having democratic elections, because there is overwhelming evidence that the harsh collective punishment of the sanctions will continue until Venezuela gets rid of its current government.”
Those sanctions, to be kept in place until Venezuela meets the American criterion of democracy, ousting the followers of Chávez from government, are “by far the most important cause of the depression in Venezuela,” according to Weisbrot and have led to the deaths of tens, and probably now hundreds, of thousands of people.
The blackmail of sanctions has been the largest interference in, and influencer of, the current election. How, Weisbrot asks, can fair elections “be held under a state of siege of this magnitude, with a foreign power exercising so much control over the state of the economy, and damaging it so immensely, along with threats; and therefore potentially affecting voters’ choices.”
Nicolás Maduro has asked the Venezuelan Supreme Court to review the voting data and validate the results. He has promised to provide all the voting totals they have. The court accepted the request and summoned all the candidates to appear before it. All the candidates appeared in the session except González who did not show up.
Venezuela’s National Election Council has now confirmed that the National Electoral Council has delivered all the election evidence requested by the court, including detailed voting records and totals. The court now has fifteen days to review the data and question the candidates. Then it is time for Venezuela to determine who won the election.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
