Nicolás Maduro Declared Winner of Venezuela’s Presidential Election

Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday. He will remain in office for a third term, but many question the legitimacy of his reelection.

Venezuela’s National Electoral Council claimed Maduro won 51.2 percent of the vote and his opposition, Edmundo González Urrutia, won 44.2 percent.

Maduro dedicated his win to his late mentor Hugo Chávez, the man who brought socialism to Venezuela.

Stand-in: González was not supposed to be the one to run against Maduro.

María Corina Machado won the opposition’s presidential primaries last October, despite being banned from holding public office in July 2023 for supporting United States’ sanctions on Maduro’s government.

González was chosen to be her stand-in after Venezuela’s supreme court upheld her ban in January.

Fraud? The opposition saw this year’s election as a chance to end Maduro’s socialist government; early polls gave them a wide lead. According to polling firm Edson Research, González was expected to win around 65 percent of the vote.

The opposition has rejected Maduro’s claim to victory, saying González won 70 percent of the vote.

Multiple foreign governments are also questioning the results, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying America has “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

The government of Costa Rica said it rejects the “fraudulent” results. The president of Uruguay said the counting was “clearly flawed.”

Maduro’s regime must understand that the results it has published are hard to believe. … Chile will not recognize any result that is not verifiable.
—Gabriel Boric, president of Chile

Peru will not accept the violation of the popular will of the Venezuelan people.
—Javier González-Olaechea, foreign minister of Peru

Lesson: Venezuela has been struggling with political, economic and social instability ever since Chávez introduced socialism to the country. This year’s presidential election was seen by the opposition as an opportunity to reverse that.

Although we don’t know how the election controversy will play out, there’s an important lesson to learn here. To understand, read “What the World Needs to Learn From Venezuela.”