Washington’s Web of Lies Backfires on Venezuela

Even if Maduro stole the election, no one would believe the US.

Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, held on July 28, has raised international concern – as have previous elections in the Caribbean nation. A clear divide has emerged, with the United States and its allies backing the opposition, while countries in the emerging multipolar world order are backing President Nicolas Maduro.

In the same way that the US and its allies have been challenging the legitimacy of Maduro’s presidency since the 2018 elections, leading to an artificial “presidential crisis” that saw former opposition leader Juan Guaido recognized by Washington as the “legitimate” president, the West is doing so again with former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.

The opposition has released copies of official counting forms collected by polling observers from most polling stations around the country. The forms show an apparent overwhelming 80% victory for Gonzalez, a claim now widely disseminated and amplified by the Western press.

Meanwhile, the National Electoral Council results showed a narrow victory for Maduro with 52%, resulting in opposition protests. The Venezuelan government has criminalized such demonstrations and has moved to repress opposition leaders.

Given the state of Venezuela’s economy and widespread poverty, it’s not beyond the realm of basic reasoning that Maduro could actually have lost. Researchers, including Steve Levitsky, a democracy expert at Harvard University, have also noted how unlikely the official results are. He told the New York Times that this recent vote is “one of the most blatant electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.”

But others disagree. Denis Rogatyuk, a reporter for El Ciudadano who covered the election for the independent media platform, told RT: “The days leading up to the election showed a monumental advantage that Nicolas Maduro and the PSUV had over the opposition in terms of manpower and the sheer force of their electoral mobilization.”

“The final rallies for President Maduro attracted six to seven times more people than those of Gonzalez and Machado. And the second bulletin released by the CNE on August 2, with 6,408,844 votes for Maduro, fits perfectly with this idea, and with the fact that the combined membership of the PSUV and its allies also amounts to just over 6 million,” he concluded.

The more interesting dynamic regarding the situation in Venezuela, however, is the failure of the US to muster the necessary support to exert the pressure it wants on Caracas. It shows a decline in US soft power in what was once considered the empire’s backyard.

The situation in Bolivia in 2019, for example, where former President Evo Morales was forced to resign under immense pressure from the police and military and after international intervention, clearly left a bitter taste in the mouths of Latin Americans.

The three most prominent countries in the region – Brazil, Mexico and Colombia – have not condemned Maduro. In fact, the Organization of American States (OAS), which had previously passed a resolution against Morales in 2019, failed to pass a resolution on the situation in Venezuela. While 17 members voted to condemn Maduro, 11 abstained – including Brazil and Colombia – and five delegations, including Mexico, skipped the session altogether. The OAS needed 18 votes to pass it.

Even the European Union failed to muster support after Hungary blocked a joint statement from the bloc that cited “defects and irregularities” in the election, forcing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to issue the statement in a personal capacity.

What we have here is a classic case of the boy who cried wolf. The US has cried wolf over alleged democratic collapses in Latin America, and has used its soft power to thwart independent governments through international forums and mafia diplomacy. It has unleashed coup after coup, leaving nothing but destruction and poverty in its wake. People across the hemisphere – and indeed the world – are sick of injustice and abuse.

This time, Washington may have been right. Maduro may have lost this election. He may not have, and that is well-founded by the fact that the US and its cronies are pathological liars. In any case, wherever the objective truth lies, no one believes Uncle Sam’s claims anymore, apparently because he has abused his power for too long in his cynical quest for dominance.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of DTNZ.