2024 Venezuelan political crisis
[4][5] Incumbent Nicolás Maduro ran for a third consecutive term, while former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia represented the Unitary Platform (Spanish: Plataforma Unitaria Democrática, PUD), the main opposition political alliance, after the Venezuelan government barred leading candidate María Corina Machado from participating.
[15] A 6 August article in The New York Times stated that the CNE declaration that Maduro won "plunged Venezuela into a political crisis that has claimed at least 22 lives in violent demonstrations, led to the jailing of more than 2,000 people and provoked global denunciation.
[46] President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil called the controversy a "normal" process, but asked for the release of the total vote tally.
[59] The AP writes that the opposition has reason to be wary of recommendations from this group to "follow Venezuelan laws and appear before the appropriate institutions", since the "ruling party controls every aspect of government, including the justice system, and uses it to defeat and repress real and perceived opponents".
[62][a] The Miami Herald wrote on 7 August that Mark Wells, a State Department official, suggested in a phone call with reporters that the US was deferring to ongoing negotiations between Maduro and the Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, while spokesperson Matthew Miller said they weren't yet endorsing a president-elect.
"[67] The day after the election, nine Latin American countries (Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay[68][69]) called for an emergency meeting of the OAS, for 31 July.
[74] The deputy prime minister of Italy Antonio Tajani stated that the Italian government was "perplexed" by the reported election results, expressing apprehension about Maduro's claim to victory reflecting "the will of the people.
[99] Rafael Uzcategui of Laboratorio de Paz "suggested the operation was intended to terrify Venezuelans into submission", adding that "what we are seeing is simply an effort to sew [sic] a climate of terror", according to The Guardian.
[106][107] Venezuelan human rights organization Foro Penal reported on 18 August they had been able to verify 1,503 arrests, including 129 adolescents, during the post-electoral period beginning the day after the elections.
[119] Vente Venezuela politician María Oropeza livestreamed as security forces broke into her residence without a search warrant and arrested her two hours after she described the ongoing detentions as a "witch hunt".
[101][120] The Venezuelan SNTP (Syndicate of National Press Workers [es]) denounced that reporter Yousner Alvarado and cameraman Paúl León were arrested shortly after the election, and photographer Deysi Penna was detained on 2 August.
[108] Perkins Rocha, Machado's attorney and the legal coordinator of her party Vente Venezuela, was detained, presumably by the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) on 27 August, according to Villca Fernández, human rights activist.
[22][24][25] BBC journalist Vanessa Buschschlüter called the members of the court "overwhelmingly government loyalists",[23] while El País described it as under PSUV (the ruling party, of which Maduro is president) control.
[143][144] Saab, who is under sanctions for multiple alleged offenses, is charged by human rights organizations as "being one of the key people in the regime's efforts to use the Venezuelan justice system as an instrument of political persecution".
[143][145][146] Following the TSJ ruling on 22 August, attorney general Saab told journalists that González would be called to testify in a criminal investigation of alleged electoral fraud.
[167] The Secretary General of the OAS Luis Almagro called for the International Criminal Court to intervene, stating that the political persecution of González was "one more crime in the permanent and continuous legal logic of systematic violation of human rights in the country".
[174] Chile's left-wing president Gabriel Boric did not recognize the TSJ ruling, and accused the court of "consolidating the fraud",[18] in an election stolen[175] by a "dictatorship that ... represses those who think differently and is indifferent to the largest exile in the world".
[173] Guatemala's president Bernardo Arévalo, characterized as center-left by The Guardian, joined Boric in the criticism from the left, calling the results a fraud[175] in an "indisputable" Venezuelan crisis.
[173] Luis Lacalle Pou, president of Uruguay, called the decision a confirmation of fraud from "a dictatorship that closes all doors to an institutional and democratic life for its people".
[177] Other Latin American leaders rejected the TSJ ruling, along with the US; in a joint statement, Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru joined the US in calling for an independent vote audit.
[178][179] The Council of the European Union issued a 25 August statement of concern that evidence was lacking from the CNE—"the body legally and constitutionally responsible for the transparent and detailed publication of the official electoral results"—reiterating the previous UN position.
[181][182] A few hours after publication of Machado's 1 August letter in The Wall Street Journal, according to VE Sin Filtro [es], that newspaper was blocked by some providers in Venezuela.
[96][190] The Venezuelan SNTP (Syndicate of National Press Workers [es]) reported that complaints had been filed from dozens of employees who said that they had been fired for liking Machado's WhatsApp posts.
[191] Le Monde wrote that Carmela Longo, a journalist at the "pro-government" newspaper Últimas Noticias said she was fired shortly before she was arrested;[192] she was charged with terrorism, and released on 26 August.
[99][191][194] Andrés Villavicencio, an attorney who served as a poll watcher, told The Wall Street Journal that masked men came to his home after the election, his passport was voided although its expiry date was 2031, and fearing arrest, he crossed into Colombia without documents and went into exile in Spain.
[202] Jack Nicas, writes for The New York Times that the government has also "purchased loyalty by giving senior military officers high-paying jobs or control of state industries".
[203] Joshua Goodman wrote for the Associated Press that "so long as Maduro has the support of the armed forces and powerful allies like Russia and China", it is "unrealistic" to think other countries can play a significant role.
[201][209] In the context of exit negotiations, Nora Gamez Torres writing for the Miami Herald also notes that, with the support of Russia, China and Cuba, Maduro "remains defiant".
[207] Writing for Foreign Policy, Geoff Ramsey and Jason Marczak stated that Maduro "looks weaker than at any point" recently, adding that his repressive moves "do not appear to be the actions of a strongman who feels safe and secure in his position".
Among the individuals who are sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury are senior figures in the TSJ, CNE, and the military including the prominent names such as Caryslia Rodríguez, Domingo Antonio Hernández Larez, and others.
