The role of the US and its allies
The US and its allies were calling for Nicolás Maduro to recognise the election result right up until the polls closed, but only claimed irregularities in the election once it was clear that their candidate González had lost.
This refusal of the US, Britain and others to accept the outcome of elections without any valid evidence is extremely irresponsible and is already leading to anti-democratic violence including attacks on hospitals and pharmacies.
A great deal of work has taken place in recent years to build dialogue. These actions by the US and their allies are a return to violent destabilisation and coupmongering.
The key role of the National Electoral council in securing a fair and transparent election
Elections in Venezuela are the responsibility of the National Electoral Council (CNE) which is an independent state authority. The CNE oversees five key safeguards for veracity, fairness and transparency in the elections:
Completely automated electronic voting, with machines that cannot be accessed by any outside computer;
Verification of the electronic vote through a paper trail;
Voter ID by using a fingerprint of the voter to verify their identify, but not their choice of candidate;
16 independent audits of the electoral process, conducted before the vote of the software and machines used, during the voting itself and after the results are in;
Hundreds of international observers are present at all elections – 109 observer groups at this election have already issued a statement “recognizing the valuable work of the National Electoral Council of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela that guaranteed the holding of elections throughout the Venezuelan territory through an electoral mechanism with the highest standards of transparency and auditability that place them as one of the best in the world.
The right-wing’s history of claiming fraud – but without evidence
The right-wing opposition has lost every election since Hugo Chávez’s election win in 1998 except for the 2015 National Assembly elections – and has claimed fraud every time it has lost, but without producing any valid evidence.
A calculated tactic by the extreme right-wing opposition
The extreme right-wing candidate Edmundo González and Enrique Márquez, another far-right candidate, refused to sign a declaration requested by the CNE promising that they would respect the election results and shun any violence afterwards, in contrast to all the other candidates signing.
The corporate media’s support for Maria Corina Machado
The corporate media’s enthusiasm for extreme right-winger Maria Corina Machado, the power behind the González campaign, fails to mention that she has been a long-time supporter of the US’s economic sanctions against Venezuela and has repeatedly called for US military intervention against her own country to remove President Maduro by force. As such, she wasn’t “banned” from standing as reported in the media but rather constitutionally disqualified from being a candidate, by the Supreme Court in a process agreed under the Barbados Agreement signed by the government and opposition parties.