Venezuela’s battered opposition is running out of options for challenging President Nicolas Maduro’s claim to have won re-election.

Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia fled in exile to Spain over the weekend. The popular leader he stood in for at the polls, Maria Corina Machado, is in hiding. Other opposition figures have been arrested and Mr. Maduro is firmly in charge of the oil-rich nation – showing no sign of yielding.

Mr. Maduro’s disputed win in the July 28 election is challenged not just by the opposition or historic geopolitical rivals such as the United States, but also by leftist allies of Venezuela such as Brazil and Colombia.

The latter have come up empty-handed in their efforts to help find a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Inside the country, chatter abounds about what the opposition calls a stolen election – but people make their criticisms in whispers: no one wants to join the more than 2,400 people who have been arrested since the vote, including children, with some even accused of “terrorism.”

Mr. Maduro would be sworn in for a third term on January 10, and in the next four months, anything can happen.

But for now, Venezuela looks like this: Mr. Maduro and other heirs of the late iconic socialist leader Hugo Chaves are closing ranks, the opposition is trying to somehow reorganize itself and the outside world is assessing how to confront a Maduro whom international sanctions and pressure have long failed to shake.

Sweeping away everything

The National Electoral Council, loyal to Mr. Maduro, proclaimed him the winner of the election with 52 percent of the votes. That means another six-year term in power for the former bus driver handpicked by Chavez to succeed him.

The opposition published copies of voting records from polling stations, saying the data proves the claim of a Mr. Maduro win is bogus and that Gonzalez Urrutia won by a landslide.

That act of publishing the results online has triggered a probe by the government and charges that the opposition engaged in conspiracy, usurping functions and sabotage.

The government has meanwhile not released detailed voting records to back up its claim of victory – it says it cannot, because the election tally system was hacked.

Mr. Maduro insists he won and at least in public rules out any kind of negotiation with the opposition.

“It is clear that the government is not seeking to yield, and to the contrary it is digging in,” said Antulio Rosales, a political scientist and professor at York University in Canada.

“It is a strategy of domination, of sweeping away everything,” said Giulio Cellini, head of the LOG political consultancy.

The goal, he said, is “to keep Maduro in place no matter what the cost is, because the cost of giving up power is even greater.”

After Venezuela’s last election, in 2018, Mr. Maduro also claimed victory amid widespread accusations of fraud. With the support of the military and other institutions, he managed to cling to power despite international sanctions.

Mr. Maduro has led the oil-rich but cash-poor country since 2013.

His tenure, amid sanctions and domestic economic mismanagement, has seen GDP drop 80% in a decade, prompting more than seven million of the country’s 30 million citizens to flee.

Gonzalez Urrutia, a 75-year-old, little-known former diplomat – until now – said last week that he was not considering going into exile, as he has now done.

But for many Venezuelans, his flight came as no surprise. He was under tremendous pressure, not just from a legal standpoint – he defied three summonses to appear in court – but also due to a rain of daily insults from Mr. Maduro, who called him “filthy,” a coward and even a Nazi.

Machado, the very popular leader of the opposition who was barred by Maduro-loyal courts from running for president, is now living in hiding.

Many Venezuelans are now wondering if she too will flee into exile.

Protests erupted right after the Maduro win was announced and in clashes with security forces 27 people died and nearly 200 were hurt.

Experts say it is unlikely that the United States will react as firmly as Donald Trump did after Maduro’s disputed win in 2018. Then, the U.S. administration said it no longer considered Mr. Maduro to be president and recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido instead.

The most recent U.S. punishment came earlier this month, when it seized one of Mr. Maduro’s planes, in the Dominican Republic. The United States is now expected to impose sanctions on individual members of the Maduro government.

Pablo Quintero, also of the LOG consultancy, said that over the short and medium term, the Maduro government expects to govern in isolation.

“They have trained for these kinds of situations and are willing to endure them in order to stay in power,” he said.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado displays vote tally sheets during a protest against the reelection of President Nicolás Maduro one month after the disputed presidential vote which she says the opposition won by a landslide, in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday (Aug. 28, 2024).
| Photo Credit: AP

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Thursday vowed to keep the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro to leave office in January.

She also urged the international community to rise to the occasion by immediately recognizing her faction’s presidential candidate as the winner of the election in July, and implement measures to hold government officials accountable for abuses unleashed after the vote.

Ms. Machado, speaking to reporters online from an undisclosed location in Venezuela, reaffirmed her commitment to negotiate incentives and guarantees that could lead to a peaceful transition of power.

“We, the Venezuelan people, have done everything,” she said. “We competed with the rules of tyranny … and we won, and we proved it. So, if the world or some government is thinking of looking the other way, imagine where sovereign will and popular sovereignty end up in the Western world. It would mean that elections are worthless.”

Her comments came three days after the country’s justice system, which is loyal to the ruling party, issued an arrest warrant for former diplomat Edmundo González, who represented the main opposition coalition in the July 28 election.

While the National Electoral Council — stacked with ruling party supporters — declared Mr. Maduro the winner, it never released vote tallies backing their claim. However, the opposition coalition claimed that González defeated Mr. Maduro by a 2-to-1 margin and offered as proof vote tallies from more than 80% of the electronic voting machines used in the election.

Thousands of people, including minors, took to the streets across Venezuela hours after the electoral council’s announcement. The protests were largely peaceful, but demonstrators also toppled statues of Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, the late leader Hugo Chávez, threw rocks at law enforcement officers and buildings, and burned police motorcycles and government propaganda.

Mr. Maduro’s government responded to the demonstrations with full force. A Wednesday report from Human Rights Watch implicated state security forces and gangs aligned with the ruling party in some of the 24 deaths that occurred during the protests.

“They have no limits in their cruelty,” Ms. Machado told reporters Thursday.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday condemned the “unjustified arrest warrant” of González, characterizing it as “another example of Mr. Maduro’s efforts to maintain power by force.” Mr. Kirby said the U.S. is considering a range of options to show Mr. Maduro and his allies that “their actions in Venezuela will have consequences.”

Under the Biden administration, Venezuela’s government has been granted various forms of economic relief from economic sanctions the U.S. imposed over the years to try to topple Mr. Maduro. Earlier this year, it ended some of the relief when the government increased repression efforts against members of the opposition, civil society and others it considers as adversaries.

Attorney General Tarek William Saab, a staunch Maduro ally, on Thursday insisted his office had sought the warrant because González, 75, failed to appear three times to answer questions in a criminal investigation focused on the publication online of the tally sheets obtained by the opposition. Mr. Saab told reporters that the publication constitutes an usurpation of powers exclusive of the National Electoral Council and claimed that the opposition’s vote records are false.

“You shared the website on your (social media) networks,” Mr. Saab said, referring to González. “Explain why you shared it if it is false.”

Mr. Saab’s claim contradicts experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center, which at the invitation of Mr. Maduro’s government observed the election and then determined the results announced by electoral authorities lacked credibility. In a statement critical of the election, the U.N. experts stopped short of validating the opposition’s claim to victory, but they said the faction’s voting records published online appear to exhibit all of the original security features.

Venezuela’s flag flutters over the Federal Legislative Palace, in Caracas, Venezuela on August 15, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Venezuela’s CNE electoral council, under fire after declaring a widely rejected election victory for President Nicolas Maduro, on Wednesday (August 14, 2024) described a U.N. report disputing the outcome as “rife with lies.”

The CNE proclaimed Mr. Maduro the winner with 52% of votes cast in a July 28 poll, without providing a detailed breakdown.

Mr. Maduro’s victory has been rejected by the opposition, the United States, European Union and several Latin American countries.

Anti-Maduro protests in Venezuela have claimed 25 lives so far, with dozens injured and more than 2,400 arrested.

A preliminary report published Tuesday by a panel of U.N. elections experts found the CNE “fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures.”

The CNE hit back Wednesday, saying the U.N. report was “rife with lies and contradictions” and insisting a “cyber-terrorist attack” has prevented it from disclosing a full breakdown of polling-station-level results after what it termed an “impeccable and transparent electoral process.”

The CNE website has been down since election day.

Venezuela’s foreign ministry has also rejected the U.N. report.

Former opposition leader Enrique Marquez, who also once ran against Mr. Maduro and himself served on the CNE, said Wednesday he would request the prosecutor’s office to launch a criminal investigation into his former colleagues on the electoral council.

Mexico insisted the solution to Venezuela’s post-election crisis could be resolved by it alone.

“This is a matter that belongs to Venezuelans, and what we want is for there to be a peaceful solution to disputes, which has always been our foreign policy,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters.

He said he had no immediate plans for renewed contact with his fellow leftist leaders in Brazil and Colombia to discuss the crisis, saying he would await a ruling by Venezuela’s Supreme Justice Tribunal, which Mr. Maduro had asked to certify the election outcome.

‘Coup d’etat’

The opposition says its own tally of polling-station-level results showed Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a 74-year-old retired diplomat, had won by a wide margin.

Gonzalez Urrutia and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who was barred from running by Mr. Maduro-friendly state institutions, are in hiding after the president accused them of seeking to foment a “coup d’etat” and incite “civil war.”

On Wednesday, Gonzalez Urrutia said the report from the UN panel and an earlier one from the U.S.-based Carter Center “confirm the lack of transparency in the announced results and confirm the veracity of” the opposition’s published ballots, “which demonstrate our indisputable victory.”

A day earlier, the South American country’s national assembly started considering a package of laws to tighten regulations on non-governmental organizations — described by the regime as a “facade for the financing of terrorist actions.”

Other measures seek to increase government oversight over social media, accused of promoting “hate,” and to punish “fascism” — a term often used by Mr. Maduro in relation to the opposition and other detractors.

Debate in the single-chamber assembly is due to resume Thursday.

Since coming to power in 2013, Mr. Maduro has overseen an economic collapse that has seen more than seven million Venezuelans flee the country, as GDP plunged 80% in a decade.

Mr. Maduro’s last election in 2018 was also rejected as a sham by dozens of countries.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks after the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela July 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has ‘serious concerns’ about the announced result of Venezuela’s hotly contested presidential election that authorities say was won by incumbent Nicolas Maduro.

Speaking in Tokyo on July 29 shortly after the announcement was made, Mr. Blinken said the U.S. was concerned that the result reflected neither the will nor the votes of the Venezuelan people. He called for election officials to publish the full results transparently and immediately and said the U.S. and the international community would respond accordingly.

“We have seen the announcement just a short while ago by the Venezuelan Electoral Commission,” he said. “We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”

“It’s critical that every vote be counted fairly and transparently that the electoral authorities immediately share information with the opposition and independent observers without delay and that the electoral authorities publish the tabulation of votes. The international community is watching this very closely and will respond accordingly,” Mr. Blinken said.

A supporter of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro arrives at Miraflores Palace to wait for the results of the presidential election in Caracas, Venezuela on July 28, 2024. The poster reads: ‘Venezuela always win’.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

President Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner in Venezuela’s presidential election on July 28, even as his opponents were preparing to dispute the results, setting up a high-stakes showdown that will determine whether the South American nation transitions away from one party rule.

Elvis Amoroso, head of the National Electoral Council, said Mr. Maduro secured 51% of the vote, overcoming Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez, who garnered 44%. He said the results were based on 80% of voting stations, marking an irreversible trend.

It came as Opposition leaders were already celebrating, online and outside a few voting centres, what they saw as a landslide victory for Mr. Gonzalez. Their hope was boosted by purported exit polls showing a healthy margin of victory for Mr. Gonzalez. Exit polls are not allowed under Venezuelan law.

The delay in announcing results — six hours after polls were supposed to close — indicated a deep debate inside the government about how to proceed after Mr. Maduro’s opponents came out early in the evening all but claiming victory.

The electoral authority, which is controlled by Maduro loyalists, has yet to release the official voting tallies from each of the 30,000 polling centers, hampering the Opposition’s ability to verify the results.

Opposition representatives said tallies they collected from campaign representatives at 30% of voting centres showed Mr. Gonzalez trouncing Mr. Maduro.

Mr. Maduro seeking a third term, faced his toughest challenge yet from the unlikeliest of opponents: Edmundo Gonzalez, a retired diplomat who was unknown to voters before being tapped in April as a last-minute stand-in for Opposition powerhouse Maria Corina Machado.