Press lies about the Venezuelan presidential election

The disputed re-election of President Nicolás Maduro has little to do with the outcome of the ballot box. In fact, as soon as they came to power in the United States on 11 September 2001, the Straussians (i.e. the followers of Leo Strauss, whose thinking was popularised by neo-conservative journalists [1]) thought that the then President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, should be shot. Since then, Venezuela has faced attempted military coups and colour revolutions.

The current president, Nicolás Maduro, is following in Hugo Chávez’s footsteps, even if he lacks the stature. In 2019, President Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, commissioned the Straussian Elliott Abrams to overthrow President Maduro.

Elliott Abrams, who had already taken part in the massacres in Guatemala in the 1980s, then in the Iran-Contra affair (for which he was convicted in the United States [2]) and the 2002 coup against President Chávez [3], is now the man in Israel who is piloting the ethnic cleansing of Gaza behind Benyamin Netanyahu [4]. In Venezuela, Abrams relied on a young deputy, Juan Guaidó. He got a handful of MPs to elect him president of the National Assembly, challenged Maduro’s election and proclaimed himself interim president.

After being recognised by the West [5], having looted the country’s assets abroad [6], and having organised unsuccessful coup attempts [7] et de guérillas [8] and guerrilla warfare [9], Juan Guaidó stepped down in 2023 in favour of a front man, who himself gave way to María Corina Machado. He now lives in exile in Miami.

As for Eliott Abrams’ plan [10], it was stopped by President Donald Trump just before the military operation was launched by SouthCom.

María Corina Machado took part in the coup d’état against President Hugo Chávez in 2005. She ran as a Liberal candidate against him in 2012. At the time, she advocated the privatisation of natural resources, particularly oil. She described President Chávez as a "thief" for having carried out expropriations with compensation. She was removed from her parliamentary mandate in 2014 because she had agreed to be appointed by Panamanian president Martín Torrijos as ambassador to the Organisation of American States (OAS).

In 2005, when her party was funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), she was received by US President George W. Bush in the Oval Office. In 2014, she was one of the main figures behind La Salida, a campaign to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro [11]. In 2015, she hoped to be brought to power by the US military in "Operation Jericho" [12]. In 2020, she signed the Madrid Charter, which brought together those nostalgic for Latin American dictatorships and described Latin American left-wing governments as affidavits of Cuban communism. She was banned from standing for election on the basis of her emails, which attested to the preparation of a coup d’état.

Unable to stand, she nominated the 80-year-old philosopher Corina Yoris to replace her. But her candidacy did not take. In the end, she appointed Edmundo González, a former diplomat. While María Corina Machado declared herself in favour of Margaret Thatcher’s "popular capitalism", González was careful to distance himself from the Argentine president, the pseudo-libertarian Javier Milei.

The 2024 presidential election

The Venezuelan presidential election was held on July 28. There were 10 candidates, not 2 as reported by some media outlets. The ballot was conducted using voting machines that were not connected to the Internet and issued a receipt for each vote.

To cheat, the machines had to be manipulated before the vote, at the risk of being discovered when the results were compared with the voters’ receipts. Incidentally, no one has denounced any rigging of this kind. Venezuela being a huge country with communication problems, the Constitution gives the National Electoral Council (CNE) 30 days to collect the polling station reports and announce the results.

However, the day after the election and well before the results were announced on July 29 and 30, Maria Corina Machado’s political group, Vente Venezuela ("Come Venezuela"), declared that the vote had been rigged. Its militants attacked 12 universities, including the newly renovated Central University of Venezuela (UCV), 7 high schools and 21 colleges, causing major damage. Three hospitals and at least 37 clinics were also attacked, as were 6 warehouses and food distribution centres.

According to the outgoing president, Nicolás Maduro, 70% of the violent elements arrested were former expatriates who had recently returned, many of whom confessed to having been trained in Texas. "The violent elements burnt down a community radio station and attacked 11 Caracas metro stations. They claimed to be burning the trains but were turned back by the workers (...) 10 regional CNE headquarters were also targeted, as was its central headquarters in Caracas, which was attacked when at least 60 international guests were in the area reserved for observers. They escaped unharmed thanks to the intervention of the Bolivarian National Guard, who protected them and arrested more than 20 members of the comanditos (commandos) on the spot".

In recent years, one seventh of Venezuelans have fled their country, where economic conditions have continued to deteriorate. In general, they were fleeing violence and had been persuaded that President Machado was going to collectivise private property. They soon realised that they were wrong, but were unable to return to their country. Those who did manage to return, just before the election, often received help from the pro-US opposition.

A computer attack blocked the transmission system of the National Electoral Council (CNE) at a time when 81% of the results had already been collected. It took several days to repair.
Neither Maria Corina Machado nor her running mate, Edmundo González, called for the violence, but there is no doubt that their political parties coordinated it.

During the paramilitary destabilization attempts, now over, the United States tried to involve the Organization of American States (OAS). This could have legitimized an external military intervention. However, a majority of American states opposed it [13].

On August 2md, the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice organised a signing ceremony for the results sent to it by the National Electoral Council (CNE). 8 of the 10 candidates signed the final document, thereby recognising the validity of the election. Enrique Márquez refused to sign, while Edmundo González did not appear.

At the end of the ceremony, Elvis Amoroso, President of the National Electoral Council (CNE), announced that, despite the computer attack that the Council had suffered, 96.87% of the results from the polling stations had been transmitted to him. On this basis, and pending the full results, he announced the official partial results as endorsed by 8 of the 10 candidates.

The turnout was only 59.97% of registered voters.
– Nicolás Maduro - PSUV (Simon Bolivar Patriotic Pole): 51.95% of votes cast
– Edmundo González . MUD (Democratic Unity Platform) [pro-USA]: 43.18% of the vote
– Luis Eduardo Martinez - AD (Popular Historical Alliance): 1.24% of the vote
– Antonio Eccari Angola - Lapiz (The New Venezuela): 0.94
– Benjamin Rausseo CONDE: 0.75
– José Brito PV (Plan B): 0.68
– Javier Bertucci - LE CAMBIO
– Claudio Fermin . SPV: 0.33
– Enrique Márquez - Grand-M. - CG (Historic Pact): 0.24
– Daniel Ceballos - AREPA (Pact of Hope): 0.16

On August 4, Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union, deplored the fact that the CNE had not published the minutes of the ballot papers, pointing out that under these conditions it was not possible to believe the results proclaimed [14]. In fact, the Bolivarian Constitution specifies that once the candidates have signed the final document, it is up to those who contest the results to prove that they are right.

International instruments of Venezuelan disorder

In the final analysis, the destabilising actions of María Corina Machado and Edmundo González had no more impact this time than in previous years. Relying on a DatinCorp poll carried out before the election and giving González a 50% voting intention, they published polling station minutes and disputed the sincerity of the National Electoral Council’s (CNE) count. The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, described this as "damning evidence".

The problem is that DiatinCorp is not a pollster, but a communications company working for the mining and oil interests that are trying to overthrow President Maduro.

Jorge Rodriguez, President of the National Assembly, has pointed out that these "damning" minutes are not compliant: they do not include the names of the people in charge of the polling stations, nor their signatures.

The Venezuelan government, which was preparing for some form of protest, had invited a group of electoral experts from the United Nations. The panel recognised that the election was valid, reliable and well organised, but also that "the CNE’s results management process did not respect the basic measures of transparency and integrity essential for holding credible elections. It did not comply with national legal and regulations and all the stipulated deadlines were not met" [15]. It noted that the computer breakdown that had prevented the CNE from proclaiming the full results within the required timeframe had still not been explained.

Reacting on August 24th to this report of August 9th, but ignoring the information published since then by Jorge Rodriguez, Josep Borrell, speaking on behalf of the European Union, stated: "The United Nations Group of Experts has confirmed that a sample of the examined ’actas’ published by the opposition have the security features of the original results protocols, thus confirming their reliability. According to the public copies of the "actas", Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia appears to have won the presidential election by a large majority" [16].

Internationally, nobody seems to care about the facts any more. This is no longer the problem. Everyone is invited to choose sides: either Edmundo González and the United States, or Nicolás Maduro against them.

As a matter of principle, Latin American governments on the "right" (in the sense of the Cold War) support Edmundo González, while those on the "left" (again in the sense of the Cold War) support Nicolás Maduro.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric is a special case: he was elected as a "left-wing" president, but has made a spectacular U-turn since his failure to reform General Augusto Pinochet’s constitution. As a result, he has aligned himself with the Western position and called on the other left-wing presidents to vote... in favour of cohabitation (Maduro and González) in Venezuela. In other words: whatever the result of the ballot box, Edmundo González must sit in government.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stands out from the rest: he seems to be the only one not to have acted reflexively, but to have examined the reality of the situation. He has wisely acknowledged both the popular support for Nicolás Maduro and the importance of his opposition.