As Venezuela Court Probes Election Results, US Declares Victory for Right-Wing Opposition

The U.S. State Department has formally recognized opposition candidate Edmundo González as the winner of Venezuela's election as the nation's highest legal body began an investigation of the vote at the request of President Nicolás Maduro, who says he prevailed in the contest that is now under intense global scrutiny.

In a statement released days after Venezuela's election authority, Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), declared Maduro the winner with just over 51% of the vote, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed late Thursday that "it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo González Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuela's July 28 presidential election."

"Now is the time for the Venezuelan parties to begin discussions on a respectful, peaceful transition in accordance with Venezuelan electoral law and the wishes of the Venezuelan people," said Blinken, the top diplomat of a country that has repeatedly attempted to overthrow the Maduro government and hammered the country's economy with sanctions. "We fully support the process of reestablishing democratic norms in Venezuela and stand ready to consider ways to bolster it jointly with our international partners."

Venezuela's Foreign Affairs Ministry quickly hit back, saying Friday that it "rejects the serious and ridiculous statements attributed to United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which he pretends to assume the role of the Venezuelan electoral authorities, demonstrating that the U.S. government is leading the coup attempt against Venezuela, promoting a violent agenda against the Venezuelan people and their institutions."

Blinken's statement accepting the right-wing opposition's claim of a decisive victory came a day after Maduro asked Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice on Wednesday to audit the presidential contest in the face of vocal concerns from regional leaders, election observers, and leading human rights organizations.

In a joint statement issued Thursday, the presidents of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico said they are "closely following" the vote-counting process and called on the CNE to "move forward expeditiously and publicly release the data broken down by voting station"—something the Maduro government indicated it will do but has yet to provide.

Meanwhile, the Carter Center—an organization whose founder, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, once praised Venezuela's election system as "the best in the world"—argued that the 2024 contest "did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic."

"In the limited number of polling centers they visited, Carter Center observer teams noted the desire of the Venezuelan people to participate in a democratic election process, as demonstrated through their active participation as polling staff, party witnesses, and citizen observers," the group said in a statement earlier this week. "However, their efforts were undermined by the CNE's complete lack of transparency in announcing the results."

The Carter Center also preemptively raised doubts about the legitimacy of the Venezuelan high court's assessment of the election.

"You have another government institution, which is appointed by the government, to verify the government numbers for the election results, which are in question," Jennie Lincoln, who led the Carter Center's election delegation to Venezuela, toldThe Associated Press. "This is not an independent assessment."

The tense and high-stakes dispute over the rightful winner of Venezuela's election has set off violence in the streets of the nation's capital and sparked fierce debate over the path forward for the Latin American nation's government.

Some on the progressive left, both in Venezuela and internationally, view the right-wing opposition's claims to victory as yet another in a long line of attacks on Venezuelan democracy by pro-corporate and fascist forces, while others—including left-wing regional leaders such as Chilean President Gabriel Boric—have expressed deep suspicions about the legitimacy of the contest, particularly given the CNE's lack of transparency surrounding the vote count. CNE has attributed the delayed rollout of full results to a cyberattack.

"The international community, and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency of the election records and the process, and that international observers not affiliated with the government report on the accuracy of the results," Boric wrote on social media. "From Chile, we will not recognize any result that is not verifiable."

Others in Latin America have stood by Maduro, including Bolivia's government, which is led by a left-wing president who recently faced an attempted coup.

Venezuela's opposition, led by María Corina Machado, continues to insist it won Sunday's election, producing its own website purporting to demonstrate that González defeated Maduro with 67% of the vote.

On Thursday, Machado—who was barred from participating in the presidential contest—took to the pages of the U.S. business press to proclaim that she can "prove Maduro got trounced."

"Maduro didn't win the Venezuelan presidential election on Sunday. He lost in a landslide to Edmundo González, 67% to 30%," Machado wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. "I know this to be true because I can prove it. I have receipts obtained directly from more than 80% of the nation's polling stations."

Maduro has pledged to release the full election results in the coming days and blamed Machado and the U.S. for stoking unrest and violence.

"If the U.S. government is willing to respect sovereignty and stop threatening Venezuela, we can return to dialogue," Maduro wrote in a social media post on Thursday.

"Venezuela is not your colony," Maduro said.