Venezuela election crisis prompts outcry by Church leaders, governments around the world

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia (left) and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro show their ballots as they vote during the presidential election on July 28, 2024. / Credit: RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images; JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 2, 2024 / 18:31 pm (CNA).

The Venezuelan government is facing increasing pressure to conduct a transparent recount of its July 28 presidential election.

According to the government-controlled National Electoral Council, President Nicolás Maduro secured another six-year term with 51% of the vote against opponent Edmundo González’s 44%. 

However, many of those in opposition to Maduro have cited the fact that a detailed breakdown of the official results has not been provided. 

In a July 30 statement, the Venezuelan Bishops’ Conference announced it was “uniting its voice” to worldwide demands for the verification of the election results while also urging people to “stand firm in hope.”

In Venezuela, voters use electronic machines that print out a receipt showing which candidate they selected and deposit these receipts at ballot boxes before leaving the polls. After these polls close, each machine prints out a tally sheet showing how many votes the candidates received, with copies being given to both electoral authorities and party representatives stationed at polling sites.

Opponents to Maduro have claimed that they acquired 81% of Venezuela’s voting machine receipts thus far, thanks to the efforts of its witnesses at the voting centers. According to this opposition, 67% of all votes from these machines went toward González, as opposed to the 30% that Maduro received.

María Corina Machado, a leading opponent of the Maduro government and campaign partner of González, told the Guardian this week that “[Maduro] should understand that he was defeated.”

Various countries throughout the world have demanded that Venezuela conduct a fair recount of the ballots and publicize all available electoral records. As a result of their outcry, over the past week diplomats from Argentina, Panama, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic have been expelled from the country by Maduro’s government.

On Aug. 1, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement recognizing González as the election’s winner, citing “the overwhelming evidence” of González’s victory, which has been “clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people.”

Under Maduro’s administration, Venezuela has been plagued by poverty, food shortage, and rising crime and mortality rates. According to USA for UNHCR, as many as 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country since 2014 as a result of the turmoil.

The current Venezuelan government has also repeatedly come under fire for investigating and silencing opponents, including Catholic priests. In 2018, Maduro reportedly referred to several Catholic clerics who had spoken out against the country’s turmoil as “devils in cassocks,” stating the Catholic Church in Venezuela as being “full of evil, poison, hatred, perversion, and slander.”

In response to the controversy over the election, Maduro has asked Venezuela’s high court to conduct an audit of the presidential election. He has told reporters he is prepared to “throw myself before justice” and is “willing to be summoned, questioned, investigated,” which drew criticism from opponents who claim that the court is too closely aligned with Maduro’s government to conduct a fair review.

Over the past week, demonstrations and violence have also escalated throughout Venezuela. Masked assailants ransacked the headquarters of Venezuela’s opposition party around 3 a.m. Friday. According to Machado, who has gone into hiding after Maduro’s threats of arrest, the assailants stole valuable documents and equipment pertaining to the election results.