Protests erupt in Venezuela as questions grow over strongman Maduro’s victory

Caracas, Venezuela (CNN) — Protests broke out in several Venezuelan cities on Monday after authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro was formally declared a winner by the county’s electoral authority in a presidential race marred by accusations of electoral fraud.

In the capital Caracas, security forces deployed tear gas to disperse a large crowd of protesters, while crowds of people were seen walking down a main road banging pots and pans as anger rose over Maduro’s victory on Sunday. PROVEA, a Venezuelan human rights organization, said pro-Maduro armed groups shot at peaceful demonstrators in Avenue Urdaneta.

Protests were also reported in other cities, including Maracay, where opposition activist Esthefania Natera told CNN that people were on the streets “to yell and demand to tell the truth because we know the real results.” In the coastal state of Falcón, demonstrators toppled a statue of Maduro, video on social media showed.

Venezuelan authorities have announced that flights from Panama and the Dominican Republic will be suspended from Wednesday 8 p.m.

Analysts say there could be a new wave of unrest in the country if there are widespread protests against the regime. Street demonstrations in previous years were crushed by the country’s military, which has long supported Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez.

On Monday night, Maduro said his government “knows how to confront this situation and defeat those who are violent,” claiming without evidence that the majority of the protestors were hate-filled criminals – and that their plan was hatched in the United States.

Earlier that day, Maduro was formally declared winner at a ceremony by the National Electoral Council (CNE), which is stacked with Maduro allies, and which hasn’t yet issued final vote tallies from Sunday’s election.

“Venezuela has the best electoral system in the world!” CNE president Elvis Amoroso announced before proceeding with the formal announcement.

But the vote was riddled with claims of irregularities. The opposition said its witnesses were denied access to the National Electoral Council (CNE) headquarters as votes were being counted, and alleged that the electoral authority had prevented more votes from being processed. The government has also been accused of rigging votes in the past, which it denied.

Maduro’s government controls almost all state institutions, including the CNE, which was accused in 2017 of manipulating turnout figures by a software company that provided the voting technology. The CNE previously denied the assertion.

The opposition coalition, headed by Maria Corina Machado, rejected Maduro’s win, with Machado and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez claiming their campaign had gathered enough vote tallies to prove Gonzalez had won. On Monday, they said they had obtained more than 73% of the tally sheets showing more than 6 million votes for Gonzalez and only 2.7 million for Maduro.

“I speak to you from a place of tranquility and truth. I want to tell you, responsibly, that we will respect the will expressed yesterday,” Gonzalez said on Monday from his campaign headquarters in Caracas.

Machado said “all the tallies were verified, totalized, scanned, digitalized, and then uploaded into a strong web portal,” adding that “several global leaders are checking the portal.”

Both called for more nationwide demonstrations on Tuesday.

In response, Jorge Rodriguez, the deputy of the National Assembly of Venezuela (a body loyal to Maduro), said the latest CNE results, with 80% of the tallies already counted, showed Maduro in the lead with 51.2% of the votes, followed by Edmundo with 44.2%.

Machado and Gonzalez are part of a unified opposition movement that overcame their divisions to form a coalition known as the Democratic Unitary Platform. Its energized campaign, which enjoyed strong polling figures prior to Sunday’s vote, was seen as the biggest challenge to Maduro’s rule.

Calls for transparency

The United States is among regional leaders, including Peru and Chile, that have raised questions about the validity of the result.

The US on Monday joined Venezuelan civil society groups and the opposition by calling on Venezuela’s government to “immediately” release specific data on the presidential election, citing concerns about the credibility of Maduro’s victory.

Brazil, an important regional player, was softer in tone but said it was awaiting “the publication by the National Electoral Council of data broken down by polling station, an essential step for the transparency, credibility, and legitimacy of the election results,” according to a statement by the foreign ministry.

Venezuela’s government, in turn, said it was expelling diplomatic staff from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Peru, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Uruguay, calling them “right-wing Washington-subordinate governments” who were committed to “the most sordid fascist ideological positions.”

Only a very limited number of election observers were allowed to monitor the vote. These included The Carter Center and the United Nations, which also called on the country’s election commission (CNE) to publish polling station-level results.

“The Carter Center has a big responsibility on their shoulders,” Laura Cristina Dib, the Venezuela Program director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told CNN, explaining that it is the only international technical observation mission that can issue a public report on the results.

A preliminary report from the Carter Center was scheduled to release on Tuesday morning, however the organization canceled its publication and is pulling all its staff from the country, according to a person with knowledge of the center’s plans. It is unclear when the report will be issued.

Senior Biden administration officials said Venezuelan election authorities must release the “detailed precinct-level results” from the election. One senior administration official noted that this data is required under Venezuela law and should be immediately available. Another said that if the election results are credible, “then this should be a very simple act and one that they would be able to fulfill quite easily.”

The officials declined to give specifics on the actions the US or international community would be prepared to take if the Venezuelan authorities do not release the data or if the results are determined to be fraudulent, but they did not rule out sanctions.

US sanctions against Venezuela were first imposed in 2017 and gradually increased as the South American country’s political crisis deepened in the following years.

The opposition’s accusations cast doubt on Venezuela’s return to the international stage after Maduro pledged last year to hold free and fair elections in US-brokered talks, in exchange for sanctions relief.

The vote’s outcome is expected to be felt across the Americas – including the US – in the form of migration.

Under Maduro’s watch, up to 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country amid unprecedented levels of poverty and economic mismanagement – thousands of whom have trekked north to the US’s southern border. If Maduro remains in power, one poll conducted in June estimates up to a third of the population is considering leaving the country after the election.

According to Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, such a situation “could be a really bad October surprise for the Democrats” in the upcoming US presidential election.

High stakes

If Maduro is inaugurated next January, it would be his third consecutive six-year term and the continuation of “Chavismo,” the left-wing populist ideology named after Chávez.

Chávez ruled Venezuela for 14 years until his death in 2013. His policies were dominated by nationalization and the redistribution of the nation’s huge oil wealth to the marginalized and poorest communities, as well as a constant push to protect Venezuelan sovereignty against “imperialist” powers.

But the oil-rich nation has in the past few years experienced the world’s worst peacetime economic crash in recent history. Maduro has blamed foreign sanctions against his regime on the downturn, saying Venezuela is victim of an “economic war.”

A loss in the election could have devastating consequences for Maduro, who is facing drug trafficking and corruption charges in the US and is under investigation for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. If he was to relinquish control, he could end up in prison.

On Monday, the Venezuelan Attorney General’s Office said it will investigate alleged attempts to sabotage the presidential election held on Sunday without providing evidence.

There was an “attack on the electrical system and a cyber attack against the data transmission system of the National Electoral Council,” Attorney General Tarek William Saab said, echoing claims made by Maduro.

The strongman has allies on the global stage, including Russia, China, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Honduras, whose officials congratulated Maduro on his win.

“I am confident that your activities as the head of state will continue to contribute to their progressive development in all directions,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in social media post.

“Remember that you are always a welcome guest on Russian soil.”

Journalist Mary Triny Mena contributed reporting as did CNN’s Michael Rios, Ivana Kottasová, and Jessie Yeung.

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