Is This the Beginning of Maduro’s End?

The Venezuelan strongman is attempting to steal the country’s presidential election and daring the people to stop him. But even if military leaders are backing him, Maduro is already weaker than he appears.

By Alejandro Tarre

The polls closed in Venezuela at 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 28. But it was not until early Monday that the winner of the presidential election was declared. After a lengthy delay, the regime-controlled National Electoral Council announced that the country’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, had won another term with 51.2 percent of the vote, surpassing rival Edmundo González, who received 44 percent. The outcome contradicted most credible preelection polls, which had shown González leading by more than 20 points. The Democratic Unitary Platform, the coalition of opposition parties led by banned candidate María Corina Machado (González competed as her stand-in), immediately denounced the result as fraudulent.

To learn more about this election, read the full essay.

Election Outcomes

Rwanda:?Presidential and legislative elections were held on July 15. Turnout was 98.2 percent, according to the National Electoral Commission. In the presidential contest, incumbent Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) won with 99.2 percent of the vote, extending his 24-year iron rule by five more years. Multiple opposition candidates were barred from running, and only two were authorized: Frank Habineza of the Democratic Green Party (DGPR) won 0.5 percent of the vote, and independent Philippe Mpayimana won 0.3 percent.

In the legislative contest, 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies were at stake. Twenty-seven of those seats are reserved for women, youth, and people with disabilities, and are elected by electoral colleges. The RPF and its allies secured 37 of the 53 direct-suffrage seats, down from 40 in the last election in 2019. The Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party both won 5 seats. The DGPR, the Ideal Democratic Party, and the Social Party–Imberakuri won 2 seats each.?

Syria:?In the July 15 parliamentary elections, all 185 candidates from the ruling Baath party of President Bashar al-Assad and its allies won seats in the 250-seat People’s Council. At least two-thirds of the seats in the Council are reserved for Baathists, and typically all Baath candidates in the running win. Thus only 65 seats were truly at stake. The parliament has relatively little power, but it could pass constitutional reforms to extend Assad’s presidential term limits. Turnout was 38.2 percent, but Syrians in the rebel-held northwest, Kurdish-led northeast, and in diaspora were excluded from voting.

Venezuela: Incumbent president Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela purportedly won a third six-year term in the July 28 presidential election. The National Electoral Council (CNE) officially declared Maduro victor with 51.2 percent of the vote, while opposition candidate Edmundo González received 44.2 percent. González and opposition leader María Corina Machado disputed the results and declared their own victory, releasing detailed voting data that show González winning at least twice as many votes as Maduro. Protests erupted across the country, and at least sixteen people have died. The Carter Center, one of the election’s few international-observer groups, stated the election did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and could not be considered democratic. Leaders around the world have called on the CNE to release its own full and transparent voting data. Turnout was 59 percent.