The anxious wait of millions of Venezuelans for a result from the National Electoral Council (CNE) ended shortly after midnight local time.
The president of the Venezuelan electoral authority, Elvis Amoroso, declared President Nicolás Maduro Moros the winner of the contest with 5,150,092 votes, 51.20%, ahead of the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, who obtained 44.2% (4,445,978 votes) with 80% of the tables counted.
Amoroso said the result was irreversible.
Against all odds and contrary to most opinion polls, Maduro has just secured a third term in office that would make him the longest-serving president of Venezuela in the country’s modern history.
“It is an announcement that generates great frustration at the national level. in the opposition vote, because they came to the elections with great enthusiasm,” political scientist Eduardo Valero, professor of political studies at the Central University of Venezuela, told BBC Mundo.
Chavismo has always shown itself convinced of a victory.
Jorge Rodriguez, Maduro’s campaign manager, hinted a couple of hours before the results were announced that they were favorable to Chavismo.
“Violence failed, hatred failed; love won, independence won, Venezuela’s sovereignty won and peace won,” he said.
“We can’t give results, but I can show faces,” he continued with a smile.
Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, He also suggested a victory for his father before the official results: “The ballot boxes express what the streets have already said during all these months of campaigning. Victory for the Venezuelan people, happy birthday Commander Chavez!” he posted on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
And let us remember that Maduro assured at the beginning of February that he was going to win “by fair means or foul.”
But with the opposition convinced it has won the election and supported by opinion polls, the political situation in the South American country is moving even further away from stability.
In this article, BBC Mundo analyses three possible scenarios in Venezuela following the victory of Nicolás Maduro.
1. Protests
Just minutes after the results were announced, loud banging of pots and pans in protest began in various areas of eastern Caracas.
“¡Fraud!“, was one of the things that some neighbors in the Altamira neighborhood were shouting.
For many opponents, the election does not end with the CNE announcement.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has insisted on continuing the electoral battle “until the end.”
“That means we must all stay at the polling stations until the votes are counted and the minutes are obtained. We will make the truth prevail and respect popular sovereignty,” he wrote on the social network X shortly before the results were announced.
Many political analysts anticipate a period of protests.
Valero foresees popular discontent and repression by the authorities.
“The question is whether the government is willing to bear the costs of further repression. “Will you bear the cost of imprisoning those who choose not to abide by the results?”
However, he believes that the protests will depend on the strength of the opposition’s reaction to this announcement and whether they really call for people to take to the streets en masse.
Shortly after the CNE declared Maduro the winner, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado declared the opposition the winner.
Machado’s numbers are based on the 40% of the votes they claim to have; the first CNE bulletin, although it spoke of an “irreversible trend”, was based on 30% of the votes.
“We won and everyone knows it”Machado said. “This is not fraud, it is ignoring and violating popular sovereignty. There is no way they can justify that. Not with the information we have,” he added.
2. Non-recognition and further international sanctions
Several world leaders had urged Maduro to respect the election results, something that many have interpreted as fears of possible manipulation of the election results.
The President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silvahad assured in a press conference last week that Maduro needed to “learn that when you win, you stay. When you lose, you leave.”
“I was scared by Maduro’s comments that Venezuela could face a bloodbath if he loses,” Lula added, referring to previous statements made by the Venezuelan president.
For its part, the government of Gabriel Boric, president of Chile, urged Venezuelan institutions in a statement published shortly before the CNE announcement to respect the “sovereign will of the people to decide their destiny.”
When the CNE released the results that declared Maduro the winner, Boric said he did not believe in them.
“The Maduro regime must understand that the results it publishes are difficult to believe. The international community and above all the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency of the minutes and the process, and that international observers not beholden to the Government account for the veracity of the results. From Chile we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable”, he wrote in X.
Valero says Maduro’s government has benefited from the country’s economy maintaining a growth rate of around 5% of gross domestic product over the past two years, but the future of sustained growth will depend on whether Maduro is recognized or not on the international scene.
“In a Latin American context, It is very likely that most of Latin America’s leaders will unite against Madurohaving as interlocutors Lula and Petro, who seem to have the ability to communicate with Maduro,” says Valero.
Officials under President Joe Biden had said their sanctions policy toward Venezuela would depend on the outcome of the election, suggesting Washington could ease sanctions if President Nicolas Maduro held a fair vote.
After the CNE announced Maduro’s victory, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed “serious concerns” that “the announced results do not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people (…). The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.”.
3. Increase in migration
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country in search of a better life. The vast majority of them did so in recent years due to a major economic crisis that has left millions in poverty.
The number of emigrants had decreased in recent months and some of those who had left had even returned to the country.
There are now fears that the CNE’s announcement could once again intensify this wave of migration.
A survey conducted by Megaanalysis and published in April notes that At least 44.6% of the Venezuelan population would consider emigrating if President Nicolás Maduro were to obtain a third presidential term.
Another recent survey by ORC Consultores found that more than 18% of respondents would plan to migrate from the country before the end of the year following a Maduro victory.
Valero qualifies and believes that the exodus will not be much greater because we currently live in a more unstable world than a decade ago and with several nations at war there are “a greater awareness that life abroad is not so easy.”
But he does not rule out the possibility of the migration wave intensifying: “Many Venezuelans are going to look for something to do with their lives.”
According to Valero, the next 72 hours will be crucial for the future of Venezuela, and the uncertainty that has marked this election continues for now.
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