Venezuelan Elections: Maduro's Government Declares Victory Amid Boycott

Venezuelan electoral authorities, allied with Nicolás Maduro, announced a significant triumph in regional and legislative elections, despite opposition boycotts and reported low voter turnout.

Venezuelan electoral authorities, closely aligned with the Maduro regime, announced on Sunday that the ruling party had secured a resounding victory in the recent regional and legislative elections. This declaration was made during a state television broadcast, where Charles Quintero, the vice president of the electoral council, claimed that allied parties had garnered over 80 percent of the votes. Notably, this announcement stripped the opposition of crucial positions, including the pivotal governor’s seat in Zulia, a state known for its vast oil resources.

Contradicting the apparent emptiness of polling stations across Caracas and other cities, for which there seemed to be little participation, officials stated that voter turnout exceeded 40 percent. However, there were no independent observers on hand to corroborate this result, and unlike previous elections, the electoral council refrained from publishing the vote counts online.

The widespread belief among Venezuelans was that the low turnout was reflective of the loyalty to María Corina Machado, a prominent opposition leader, who had urged her followers to abstain from voting. This event comes closely on the heels of a presidential election in which Maduro also claimed victory, despite independent counts suggesting otherwise.

The Carter Center, an impartial monitoring organization, previously identified the claim as a "falsification," pointing out that official tallies had shown Maduro lost decisively to his challenger, Edmundo González. After this recent election, the opposition now holds governance in just one state, Cojedes, while the ruling party claims control over 22 out of 23 states in the country.