“Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States… that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.” But it was only clear for four days.
Almost two weeks after holding still-disputed general elections, the situation in Venezuela remains volatile and unclear. Violence is rising on both sides. It is still far from clear who actually won the elections. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has still not publicly released the tally sheets confirming Maduro’s victory though it has handed them to the Supreme Court. As I noted in my piece, Groundhog Day in Venezuela, Maduro has a clear motive (winning the elections) as well as probably the means to commit wide-scale electoral fraud.
The question is: did he need to?
For the moment there is no conclusive evidence showing that the election was rigged.* It is also clear from that the main opposition forces’ strategy from day one was to discredit the results if they didn’t win. Hardly helping matters is the fact that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a press release on August 1 congratulating, without definitive proof, the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, on his “overwhelming victory” and calling for a “respectful, peaceful transition,” which right now appears to be the last thing on the cards:
[T]he democratic opposition has published more than 80 percent of the tally sheets received directly from polling stations throughout Venezuela. Those tally sheets indicate that Edmundo González Urrutia received the most votes in this election by an insurmountable margin. Independent observers have corroborated these facts, and this outcome was also supported by election day exit polls and quick counts. In the days since the election, we have consulted widely with partners and allies around the world, and while countries have taken different approaches in responding, none have concluded that Nicolás Maduro received the most votes this election.
Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election.
The statement also criticises Venezuela’s electoral system, the voting day processes, and the way in which results have been released by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), as if the US were a shining beacon of electoral integrity and transparency. As PlutoniumKun noted in the comments section to yesterday’s links, “the Venezuelan system has always been acknowledged as one of the best in the world when it comes to eliminating fraud — certainly better than the US system.”
The State Department’s unilateral declaration of González’s victory was lambasted by other governments, political analysts, and social movements. They accused the US of attempting to resurrect its failed “Guaidó plan,” in which the Trump administration unilaterally hand-picked a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declaring him constitutional president of Venezuela, while at the same time imposing crippling sanctions on the country. A slapstick but deadly farce that would last for most than three years.
Needless to say, the US’s latest attempt to impose its will on Venezuela was quickly relayed, uncritically, by English and Spanish-speaking media:
- CBS News: “US Recognizes Opposition’s Edmundo González As Winner in Venezuela Election”;
- New York Times: “U.S. Recognizes Maduro’s Rival as Winner of Venezuelan Election”;
- Financial Times: “US Declares Opposition Candidate Winner of Venezuela’s Disputed Election”
- El País (translated from Spanish): US Recognises Edmundo González as Winner of Venezuela’s Election
Clearly, the US government was trying to set the narrative. As the El País article notes, “After four days of Washington calling for the publication of the official electoral tallies which, according to the ruling party in Caracas, give victory to Nicolás Maduro, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has gone a step further.”
A handful of US-aligned countries in the region quickly followed suit. On Monday, González and his handler, María Corina Machado issued a statement on Monday unilaterally declaring González as “president-elect” and calling on the police and armed forces to follow his orders, to apparently little avail. But on the same day, the US government took a big step back. And then made a 180-degree turn. In a press conference, State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller clarified that the US still does not consider González as president of Venezuela:
We are not at that point yet (of recognizing him as president). We are in close contact with our partners in the region, especially Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, to find a way forward.
As far as I can tell, this clarification was not reported nearly as widely as the statement it was meant to clarify.
As I noted in my Goundhog Day piece, the moderately left-of-centre governments of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are likely to play a key role in determining how this crisis evolves, and whether or not a negotiated outcome is possible. Unlike most countries, they have adopted a more neutral stance by neither rejecting nor celebrating when Venezuela’s electoral authorities declared Maduro the winner at the ballot box.
Since then, the three countries have issued a joint statement urging Venezuela’s electoral authorities to release tens of thousands of vote tally sheets, considered the ultimate proof of results — something the authorities are still yet to do. The three nations, whose current presidents are Maduro allies, are also holding regular conversations with both sides, according to a senior Mexican official cited by The Associated Press.
For its part, the EU Commission’s diplomatic service has cast doubt on the official electoral results while tentatively suggesting that González “would appear to be the winner… by a significant majority.” Besides the US, six other countries on the American continent have so far recognised Gonzalez’s “victory”: Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Panama.
Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino even offered to host a regional summit of presidents to address the crisis in Venezuela. Coincidentally (or not), Mulina made the proposal on the same day that he met up with the commander of US Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, to renew a memorandum of understanding for air, maritime and ground domain awareness between the US and Panama.
Unsurprisingly, many countries in the region rejected Mulino’s proposal point blank.
“No country has the right to ‘foment actions’ that are not within the framework of respect for the self-determination of peoples,” said the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, or ALBA, whose members include Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Venezuela. In a statement, the organisation described Panama’s proposal as “interventionist,” with the aim of destabilising Venezuela or even fomenting a coup in the country…
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Nick Corbishley 