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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/07/30/venezuelan-opposition-cries-fraud-people-reelect-president-maduro/">counterpunch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Venezuelan Opposition Cries Fraud; People Reelect President Maduro</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Roger Harris</div>
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<div id="gmail-attachment_329527" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-329527" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WhatsApp-Image-2024-07-29-at-11.19.26_ed5dd0fd-680x907.jpg" alt="" width="295" height="394" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-329527" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Photo: Roger Harris.</p></div>
<p><em>July 29, 2024, Caracas, Venezuela.</em></p>
<p>Shortly before midnight, the president of the National Electoral
Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, announced the re-election of Venezuela’s
President Nicolas Maduro. Like the proverbial boy who cried wolf, the
US-backed and funded far-right opposition cried fraud.</p>
<p>Maduro won with 51.2% of the vote. His nearest rival, the far-right
US-backed candidate Edmundo Gonzalez trailed by 7 percentage points.</p>
<p>While the US corporate press refers to the “opposition” as if it were
a unified bloc, eight other names appeared on the ballot. Unlike the
US, where most of the electorate is polarized around two major parties,
the fractious opposition in Venezuela is split into many mutually
hostile camps whose dislike of the ruling Socialist Party is matched by
their loathing for each other. And this is despite millions of US
tax-payer dollars used to try to unify a cabal that would carry
Washington’s water.</p>
<p><strong>Sore losers</strong></p>
<p>In the quarter century since Hugo Chavez initiated the Bolivarian
Revolution when he was elected president in 1998, the Chavistas have won
all but two of over thirty national contests. The far-right opposition
celebrated when they won a national referendum along with the 2015
National Assembly contest. But every other time, the sore losers cried
fraud.</p>
<p>Yet every one of these contests employed the same electoral system of
multiple public audits, transparent counting, and an electronic vote
backed with paper ballots. The system is incontrovertibly fraud-proof.
Former US President Jimmy Carter, whose electoral monitoring
organization had observed over ninety elections – including Venezuela’s –
had declared the South American country’s system the best in the world.</p>
<p>Beyond the accusations, concrete proof of fraud had not been
forthcoming in the past even though the data were publicly available.</p>
<p>I was one of 910 internationals representing over one hundred
countries who had been invited to Venezuela to accompany this election.
Yesterday, I visited polling stations in the state of Miranda.</p>
<p>I observed long but orderly lines of people going to the polls. At each one of the individual <em>mesas </em>(rooms
at a polling station), representatives of political parties sat to
monitor the process. I spoke to representatives of Maduro’s Socialist
Party (PSUV) as well as other parties. All expressed confidence in the
fraud-proof nature of their electoral system. In fact, they are very
proud of their system regardless of political affiliation.</p>
<p>According to news reports, there were cyberattacks on the electoral
system. At some polling stations, far-right opposition elements
reportedly attacked electoral workers in attempts to disrupt the
process.</p>
<p>But my experience visiting the polls could only be described as
festive. Seeing our international invitee credentials, which we wore on
lanyards around our necks, we were universally greeted with shouts of <em>bienvenida </em>(welcome), V-signs, and applause. These were clearly a people with great civic pride.</p>
<p>This reception was the same in “popular” Chavista neighborhoods as
well as wealthier ones. Some hoped for “change” and others for
continuing the Bolivarian Revolution. But all freely and
enthusiastically participated in the electoral process.</p>
<p>The perennial accusations of fraud, trotted out every time the
far-right gets rebuked by the voting public, were not reflected by the
actions of the people on the ground as evidenced by their wholehearted
participation.</p>
<p>July 25, the last day of official campaigning, was marked by the
final political rallies. The far-right drew an estimated 100,000. I
attended the Maduro rally of some one million. As far as I could see,
people had jammed the main boulevards of Caracas. Clearly the Chavistas
have a vast and dedicated base.</p>
<p>And they are wildly supportive of their current president Nicolas
Maduro, who is seen as carrying on the legacy of the deceased founder of
the Bolivarian project, Hugo Chavez, whose birthday is the same as this
election day.</p>
<p>But it goes deeper than that. As the slogan <em>yo soy Chavez</em> (I
am Chavez) indicates, the base sees the Bolivarian project not simply
as one of their political leadership but more so as a collective
endeavor.</p>
<p><strong>The real electoral interference</strong></p>
<p>Far greater than any accusation of fraud manufactured by the
far-right opposition is the much more significant interference in the
electoral process by Washington.</p>
<p>The vote for continuing the Bolivarian Revolution represents a
mandate for national sovereignty. Venezuelans went to the polls knowing
that a vote for the incumbent meant no relief from US unilateral
coercive measures. These so-called “sanctions” have been part of
Washington’s failed regime-change campaign explicitly designed to
asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy and turn the people against their
government.</p>
<p>This shout-out of, in Maduro’s words, “we are not anyone’s colony” was indeed heard around the world.</p>
<p><strong><em>Roger D. Harris </em></strong><em>is with the US Peace Council and the 39-year-old human rights organization Task Force on the Americas.</em></p>
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<strong><em>Roger Harris </em></strong><em>is on the board of the <a href="http://taskforceamericas.org/">Task Force on the Americas</a>, a 32-year-old anti-imperialist human rights organization.</em>
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