Venezuela’s stolen elections embolden the world’s autocracies

Venezuela’s stolen elections embolden the world’s autocracies Expert commentaryjon.wallaceAugust 1, 2024

Washington’s sanctions helped Maduro hold elections; but the US couldn’t make them free and fair. What now?

Venezuela’s July 28 elections have always been about more than the future of democracy in South America. The lives and hopes of the 29 million Venezuelans still facing a humanitarian and political crisis in the country represent a global and moral concern.

Beyond the country’s borders, the international reaction to President Nicolas Maduro’s dubious re-election has serious implications for regional and international norms and institutions. Venezuela’s stolen elections could shape the domestic politics of Brazil, Colombia, and the United States in ways that benefit the interests and ambitions of Russia and China.

Violation of international obligations

Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election was the result of an international agreement announced on October 17, 2023, in which Maduro’s government pledged to hold free and fair elections in 2024. In response, the US eased economic sanctions the next day.

In the 10 months that followed, the conditions for a free and fair election quickly deteriorated. Venezuela’s pro-government Supreme Court disqualified the main opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, and the government arrested more than 70 members of her team, detaining more than 100 others. In addition, the government and its security forces—including pro-government militias—intimidated opposition rallies and blocked the opposition’s access to national media.

Related content

What You Need to Know About Venezuela’s July 28 Presidential Elections

Machado responded by throwing her considerable popularity momentum — even rock star status — behind a mild-mannered 74-year-old retired diplomat, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. Gonzalez led Maduro in the polls by 25 to 30 percentage points in the weeks leading up to the election.

But on election day, six hours after polls were due to close, the pro-Maduro electoral commission announced that the president had been re-elected for a third term, with 51 percent of the vote, compared to 44 percent for Gonzalez.

However, the commission never provided the actual counts. Governments including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, the UK, the US and the EU refused to recognise the results without evidence.

Notably, others rushed to congratulate Maduro and make lofty statements of solidarity. That rogues’ gallery included China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria – a coalition of world states actively seeking to weaken international commitments to human rights and popular sovereignty.

Russian and Chinese interests

Chinese officials have privately expressed frustration over Maduro’s economic mismanagement.

But Venezuela is a useful ally in the competition between Beijing and Washington. The country is strategically located in a region typically defined as the U.S. sphere of influence, sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and is governed by a president who has repeatedly challenged American power and obstructed international standards for free and fair elections and international monitoring of human rights.

For Russia, too, Venezuela offers a symbolic ally. A month before the election, Russian warships docked in a Venezuelan port—an in-your-face (if only symbolic) show of force in the U.S. backyard, and a sign of support for Maduro against his own people. What materially Russia can offer to alleviate the humanitarian crisis that the beleaguered government presides over is unclear—other than channels to avoid U.S. economic sanctions that are sure to be tightened after Sunday’s election debacle.

The same goes for Iran, which has been collaborating in the processing and laundering of Venezuelan oil exports since 2019, in violation of US sanctions.

The unspeakable but real threat to international norms

There was a time in the 1990s and early 2000s when the assessment of elections by international election observers mattered in the global assessment of the moral authority and legitimacy of governments.

Venezuela’s sham election proves that those days are long gone. In late May, Venezuela’s electoral commission withdrew an invitation to the EU to send an election observation mission.

Instead, observers from China and Russia were invited – hardly credible overseers of a democratic exercise.

The only reliable observers left were a panel of four UN experts and a team of fewer than 20 from the Carter Center — barely enough, by their own admission, to cover the more than 14,000 polling stations and conduct a comprehensive effort.

Nevertheless, the recent Carter Center report is damning. The opening statement says it all: “Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election fell short of international standards for electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.”

The question is how can a divided international community respond, as China, Iran and Russia rush to embrace the fraudulent outcome? Multilateral responses through the UN are impossible given the complicity of Russia and China. And economic and individual sanctions imposed by the US, UK and EU have failed to provoke the desired response.

The inhuman weapon of refugees after elections

There is another element to the cruel calculations that China and Russia are making by supporting the Maduro government.

Over the past decade, more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country’s humanitarian disaster. In pre-election surveys, up to 30 percent of Venezuelans said they planned to leave the country if Maduro were re-elected. Even a fraction of that outflow would cause significant friction in neighboring countries and the U.S.

Countries like Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Peru have welcomed many of Maduro’s refugees. But the influx has begun to strain public services and labor markets. There are about 3 million Venezuelan immigrants in Colombia and nearly a million in Brazil.

The social and political backlash against Venezuelan refugees is growing in Colombia and Chile, fueled in part – in some cases unfairly – by fears of rising crime linked to Venezuelan transnational criminal groups such as Tren de Agua.

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in the US ahead of the November presidential election. An estimated 800,000 Venezuelan refugees are in the country, many of whom crossed the border illegally.

It is not far-fetched to think that China and Russia would welcome the discord and social unrest that a new migration crisis would bring to democratic countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia and the US.