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The President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, strengthened its power in Venezuela by assuming control of Parliament in elections harshly criticized by the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries, and praised by Russia, one of its main allies.
Sunday’s elections were boycotted by the main opposition political parties, led by Juan Guaidó, denouncing them as fraudulent. There was just a 30.5% turnout, according to a new electoral bulletin.
The alliance of parties that support Maduro took 68.43% of the 6.2 million votes counted with 98.6% of the minutes transmitted, Indira Alfonzo, president of the National Electoral Council, reported on Monday.
This consolidates the dominance of the socialist leader, who previously controlled the rest of the State institutions and has the support of the Armed Forces.
“A new stage of reconstruction of Parliament and the recovery of our country has begun,” Maduro wrote on Twitter on Monday.
“He stole the elections”
Chavismo’s victory has unleashed crossroads of rejection and support in the international community.
The head of US diplomacy, Mike Pompeo, reiterated Monday that the White House “will continue to recognize” Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela.
“The international community cannot allow Maduro, who is in power illegitimately because he stole the 2018 elections, to benefit from stealing a second election,” said Pompeo, who on Sunday had called the legislative votes a “farce”.
The opposition broke 15 years of Chavista hegemony in Parliament in 2015, in elections with 71% participation.
However, in 2018, he was marginalized from the presidential elections as a fraud and the opposition majority in Parliament declared Maduro a “usurper.” From the head of Congress, Guaidó then claimed the presidency in charge of Venezuela with the support of fifty countries.
Washington is leading the pressure against Maduro with economic sanctions on Venezuela that include an oil embargo in force since April 2019.
The United Kingdom, meanwhile, “will not recognize the legitimacy” of this new National Assembly that emerged from “profoundly flawed elections,” Foreign Minister Dominic Raab said on Monday.
“Mind your own business”, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza responded in English on Twitter.
“Transparency”
The European Union, which tried unsuccessfully to postpone the process to send observers, indicated that on Sunday there were no “minimum international standards.”
The bloc “cannot recognize this electoral process as credible, inclusive or transparent,” said the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell.
But among the signs of international rejection, Maduro found voices of support.
Russia celebrated the “transparency” of the process. “We start from the principle that the new National Assembly will be the ground (…) for a constructive dialogue between all political forces” and will help “overcome the disagreements that exist in Venezuelan society through negotiations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry stressed.
The speech is in line with what the former president of the Spanish government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said yesterday, one of the international guests of the socialist government to accompany the elections together with former presidents Evo Morales, from Bolivia; Rafael Correa, from Ecuador, and Fernando Lugo, from Paraguay, as well as former Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba.
Luis Vicente León, director of the Datanálisis polling station, told AFP this week that he was not expecting recognition from the United States or Europe.
Maduro “validates an institution that can be useful in front of its allies,” he said. The president seeks that countries like China, Russia, India or Mexico feel “that there is an institution that can support agreements, for example, oil or infrastructure.”
“Blackmail”
“There was no election yesterday,” Guaidó said at a press conference. “They blackmailed people and people just didn’t accept it.”
Despite the majority boycott, a dissident fraction of the opposition nominated candidates, including some with cards from the opposition parties that led the veto, after the ruling Supreme Court handed over its control to opponents of the parliamentary leader. It added just over 20% of the votes.
“The answer to fraud (…) is to act in the street,” claimed Guaidó, who called a plebiscite that from Monday until Saturday seeks to endorse an extension of the parliamentary term until there are “free, verifiable and transparent elections.”
According to Guaidó, the participation on the first day of this consultation – symbolic, since Maduro exercises territorial and institutional control – was “higher” than expected, although he did not give figures.
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