Venezuela in political standoff after both Maduro and opposition claim election victory

The U.S. says it has serious concerns about the election results in Venezuela after authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro declared a victory in a tumultuous presidential race. Exit polls showed a blowout win for the opposition party. Both Maduro and the opposition have claimed a win, but most world leaders held back from recognizing the results. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Ricardo Zuniga.
Geoff Bennett:
The U.S. says it has serious concerns about the election results in Venezuela. That’s after Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro, declared a victory in a tumultuous presidential race. Exit polls in yesterday’s voting showed a blowout win for the opposition party.
Now both Maduro and the opposition have claimed to win, but most world leaders have held back from recognizing the results.
Even before the official results, the headlines were set and the papers went to print. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claimed another six years in office.
Juan Barrera, Venezuelan Resident (through interpreter):
This really caught my attention. It was not what you would expect. At least, I did not expect it.
Geoff Bennett:
And there was good reason for that surprise on the otherwise quiet streets of Caracas. Last night’s exit polls told a different story, showing that Maduro’s main challenger, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, would win by a large margin.
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who championed Gonzalez after she was banned from running by Venezuela’s Supreme Court, declared his victory.
Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela Opposition Leader (through interpreter):
Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia got 70 percent of the votes in this election and Nicolas Maduro received 30 percent of the votes. This is the truth. And, my dear Venezuelans, this is the Venezuelan election with the largest margin of victory in history.
Geoff Bennett:
As the polls closed on Sunday night, opposition supporters tried to witness the count. But scuffles broke out as Maduro’s supporters showed up to push them back.
Hours after voting ended, the Maduro-controlled National Election Authority declared him the winner with 51 percent of the vote and 44 percent for Gonzalez, who vowed to continue his fight.
Edmundo Gonzalez, Venezuela Opposition Presidential Candidate (through interpreter):
What happened during today’s polling day was a violation of all the rules, to the point that the majority of electoral registers have still not been handed over.
Geoff Bennett:
The Venezuelan electoral body made a Maduro win official today, but the opposition has argued for more transparency.
Antonio Ledezma, Former Mayor of Caracas, Venezuela (through interpreter): Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez have all the records and numbers. It’s just a matter of reviewing them. That’s why we are asking for a review of each record to uncover the truth.
Machado and Gonzalez presented the biggest challenge to the United Socialist Party since the revolutionary Hugo Chavez took office more than 25 years ago. Venezuela was once the most advanced economy in Latin America, with the world’s largest oil reserves.
But since Chavez died and his protege Maduro took office in 2013, Venezuela has spiraled amid devastating inflation, economic collapse and alleged human rights abuses; 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country, almost a third of the population. Many world leaders have denounced or discounted Maduro’s announced victory.
Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State: The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly.
Geoff Bennett:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken negotiated with Maduro to ease American sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas industries in exchange for a commitment to free and fair elections. Blinken addressed the results on a trip to Asia today.
Antony Blinken:
We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.
Geoff Bennett:
But Maduro appears undeterred.
Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan President (through interpreter):
A triumph of the national independence, the dignity of the Venezuelan people. The sanctions made weren’t enough. Aggressions against us weren’t enough. Threats weren’t enough, not today, and those will never be enough against the dignity of the Venezuelan people.
Geoff Bennett:
And we are joined now by Ricardo Zuniga, founding partner of Dinamica Americas. That’s an international advisory group. He’s also a former State Department official who served as President Obama’s principal adviser for the Americas.
It’s great to have you here.
Ricardo Zuniga, Former State Department Official:
Thank you very much.
Geoff Bennett:
I want to start with your reaction to Nicolas Maduro’s declaration of victory in Venezuela.
Ricardo Zuniga:
Well, Maduro knows, and so does everyone else, in Venezuela and outside of Venezuela that he lost the selection in the landslide to Edmundo Gonzalez.
At this point, he’s doing what he can, apparently, to try to change the facts on the ground. But he did that in 2018. I don’t think he’s stronger today than he was in 2018, and certainly not even stronger than he was yesterday. So he’s trying to essentially cement these facts, gather as many international allies as he can to support him, unsuccessfully for the most part, and essentially steal the selection.
Geoff Bennett:
What options are available to the U.S. as it weighs its response? Because, until now, sanctions had been the main leverage point.
Ricardo Zuniga:
Well, sanctions were one point of leverage, and they were designed exactly as that, as one part of the option.
Diplomatic negotiations with the Maduro team, but also basically coalescing a larger group of international actors, especially from the Americas and Europe, to try to pressure for democratic change and support democratic actors in Venezuela, that is an important source of leverage for the United States.
There’s also the fact that conditions regionally have changed dramatically over time. There is very, very little support regionally for the government that he is going to try to reimpose.
Geoff Bennett:
Well, how instrumental are those regional players, like Brazil, Colombia, Chile, all of whom they have demanded to see a total vote tally here?
Ricardo Zuniga:
Well, they have.
And so what Maduro is trying to do today is really eliminate that vote tally as a real factor at all by establishing facts on the ground through the use of force and through the theft of ballot boxes, a very old-style approach to election theft with very little guile.
But those actors, those regional actors, remain extremely important. And what Brazil says, what Colombia says is going to weigh a lot. These are important trading partners for Venezuela. They share not just borders, but a lot of interests in common. They’re also the destination for millions of Venezuelans who have left that collapsing state.
Geoff Bennett:
Meantime, China and Russia are rallying behind Maduro. What are the implications there?
Ricardo Zuniga:
Well, unfortunately, that’s going to continue this farce of an election. That is going to provide some vital support.
But they also have to look at Maduro as a weakened leader. At the end of the day, he allowed an election that demonstrated just how weak he is internally. And those are not the only ones. His domestic allies will also be weighing that weakness.
Geoff Bennett:
What’s the path forward, or is there a path forward now for the opposition? And what does all of this mean for the people of Venezuela, who are desperate for change?
Ricardo Zuniga:
There is certainly a path forward.
I think that everyone in Venezuela knows that Edmundo Gonzalez won this election, that there is massive domestic support for change in Venezuela, and as there should be. Almost eight million Venezuelans have left the country in recent years.
And so now I think there’s going to be an increasing demand for change, not a decreasing demand. There is a sense that the 2018 election, which was won under very questionable terms by Maduro, is — that’s not the way forward. I think that the pressure for change is only going to grow. And there are different institutions in Venezuela, like the armed forces, that are going to have to make some difficult decisions about where they stand.
Geoff Bennett:
Ricardo Zuniga, thanks so much for your insights this evening. We appreciate it.
Ricardo Zuniga:
Thank you very much.