Protests gather steam in Venezuela
July 30, 2024
Spontaneous protests started in diverse locations around Venezuela yesterday, after electoral authorities said Nicolás Maduro won reelection in Sunday’s presidential vote, without releasing tallies proving the results. Laboratorio de Paz verified 210 protests — notably in working class neighborhoods that have traditionally been chavista strongholds — throughout the day, and at least seven statues of Hugo Chávez were torn down. (Runrun.es) “Protesters decapitated one of the statues and dragged the bronze head through the streets on a chain tied to a motorcycle,” reports El País.
At least four people were killed and dozens injured as security forces responded to protests with tear gas and rubber bullets, reports AFP. 46 were detained, according to Foro Penal. Voluntad Popular, an opposition party, said one of its leaders, Freddy Superlano was kidnapped and shared a video showing a man being pulled out of an SUV by armed and hooded people dressed in black. (Efecto Cocuyo, Runrun.es, Infobae)
Throughout yesterday, “social media filled with reports of opposition marches originating in poor communities across town and clashes with security forces and pro-Maduro motorbike gangs known as colectivos who were filmed shooting into the air,” reports the Guardian.
Protesters in Cumaná, 250 miles east of the capital, tried to reach the country’s election headquarters, but they were pushed back by the National Guard, reports the New York Times.
Stores in Caracas are largely shuttered today, and there are long lines of people stocking up at places that are open, reports El País.
The government has portrayed the protests as criminal gatherings aimed at a coup d’etat, and called for rallies in support of Maduro later today. Today Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said “we are in the presence of a coup d’etat carried out by fascist groups supported by North American imperialists and their allies.” He said the armed forces would not allow a coup. (Efecto Cocuyo)
Opposition leaders called for peaceful assemblies today. Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González called on security forces not to repress protesters. (Efecto Cocuyo)
The tallies
Opposition leaders said they have obtained tallies from more than 70 percent of the country’s polling stations, and that the results they document make Maduro’s reelection mathematically impossible. In a speech yesterday, María Corina Machado said the tallies obtained by the opposition show Maduro obtained only 2.76 million votes, while González obtained 6.27 million. (Efecto Cocuyo, Miami Herald)
While Maduro has been accused of electoral fraud in the past, the difference between the electoral authority’s claim and the oppositions’ is of a far more significant magnitude this time. Earlier today an Organization of American States report said there was "exceptional manipulation" of the election results that handed Maduro his win.
Steve Levitsky, an expert on democracy at Harvard University, called Sunday’s vote “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history.” (New York Times)
“Maduro made a grave mistake by allowing the fraud. Not only has he isolated himself again in the cell of illegitimacy from which he tried so hard to escape. In one leap he turned his government into a tyranny and Chavismo into totalitarianism,” writes Boris Muñoz in El País.
The OAS called for an urgent meeting of its members to discuss the election, and suggested that a new vote should take place to resolve the discrepancies in results. (Associated Press)
A growing chorus of international actors are demanding Venezuela release the evidence backing its electoral results. Maduro has said the data remains unpublished do to a hacker attack. (Folha de S. Paulo)
The Carter Center, which sent a team of electoral observers for the vote, called on the electoral authority to immediately publish the complete results by polling station, yesterday. Today the Carter Center said it was cancelling a report planned for this morning and will be pulling its team out of Venezuela. (CNN)
Both Brazil, Colombia and Mexico whose governments have previously sought dialogue with Maduro, have called for more detailed electoral information to be released. A blatantly stolen election will further isolate Venezuela’s government. (Efecto Cocuyo)
Brazilian diplomat Celso Amorim, who was in Caracas for the election, expressed caution yesterday, saying he could not make judgement on the process without the full results, and called on authorities to release the data for each ballot box. (O Globo)
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is scheduled to speak with U.S. President Joe Biden on the issue later today, reports El País.
Nine Latin American countries called in a joint statement for a "complete review of the results with the presence of independent electoral observers."
“But the diplomatic capacity to influence the Chavista government has always been limited,” writes Boris Muñoz in El País. “Never before has this been so clear. Following the announcement of the election results, various democracies have expressed their concern. Maduro has responded in the crudest way: expelling the ambassadors of several countries in the region.”
Maduro’s government has lashed out a critics, and announced yesterday it was withdrawing all of Venezuela’s diplomats from seven Latin American countries, including Argentina, Chile and Peru, and demanding those countries’ governments respond in kind. (Washington Post)
Predictions
While the protests are a sign of popular anger, which also pushed a strong voter participation rate on Sunday, despite obstacles, “Maduro appears to have the support of the top civilian and military leadership,” notes James Bosworth at Latin America Risk Report. The Venezuelan government’s ability to repress protesters is not concentrated in the armed forces, rather it is spread out over five units of official security organizations, and unofficial forces that include paramilitaries and criminal groups, writes Javier Corrales on Twitter. “Vzla has one of the most repressive apparatuses imaginable.”
“Historically, the Maduro regime has not given concessions voluntarily, and it will not do so now. The key question moving forward is how to provide incentives, within the boundaries of the rule of law, to individuals who can help the country move away from the current repressive apparatus toward the complicated path to democracy,” writes Tamara Taraciuk Broner in Americas Quarterly.
As protests and repression mounted yesterday, “it became clear that Maduro was willing to take the next step—and become a fully rogue, isolated, Nicaragua-style regime if necessary to retain power,” writes Brian Winter in Americas Quarterly.
“In the aftermath of these elections, assuming the security apparatus remains loyal to Maduro and is able to squash any civil resistance, Venezuela’s international isolation will worsen, with more sanctions expected,” writes Jeremy McDermott in InSight Crime. “This isolation is going to deepen Venezuela’s financial crisis and Maduro’s reliance on criminal networks and illegal rents to keep his cash-starved regime afloat.”
Final note
“Pause to appreciate the irony that the electoral system put in place by Hugo Chavez included a verification mechanism to prevent stolen elections and that verification mechanism (the printed actas at each voting site) is now functioning to prove that Chavez's successor stole an election,” notes James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report.
Regional
Civilian control has been key in limiting military coups in Latin America in recent decades, write Shannon O’Neil and Will Freeman for the Council on Foreign Relations.
Migration
More than 55,000 Chinese migrants have illegally entered the U.S. through Mexico over the past year and a half, “the largest wave of illegal border crossings by Chinese immigrants in history — part of a wider influx that is also bringing record numbers of migrants from South America, India, Turkey and an array of African nations,” reports the Washington Post.
A mass exodus from Chiapas to Guatemala last week — more than 500 Mexicans fled their homes, emptying entire communities — is a response to violence linked to territorial conflict between drug cartels. “But the conflict between these groups has also taken in and inflamed existing tensions in a region with a history of violence over access to land,” reports the Guardian. (See last Friday’s briefs.)
Mexico
Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García was not tricked into traveling to Texas, last week, rather he was abducted by Joaquín Guzmán López, a younger Sinaloa Cartel leader, who “with a group of henchmen who handcuffed him, stuck a bag over his head and muscled him into a car and then on to the plane, where he remained bound throughout the flight,” reports the New York Times. (See yesterday’s briefs.)
Ioan Grillo at Crashout has more details from a member of El Mayo’s security team: “he claimed that U.S. agents were at the house in Culiacán when Mayo was kidnapped.”
“Cartel operatives across northwest Mexico are bracing for a potential explosion of violence following the arrest,” according to Crashout. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on to drug cartels not to fight each other following last week’s detention of top Sinaloa Cartel leaders in the U.S., an unusual public appeal, reports the Associated Press.
Colombia
“Violence against LGBTQ+ individuals has been on the rise in Colombia: eight trans women were killed between February and April this year, while 41 were killed in 2023,” reports the Guardian. “Activists say armed groups are seeking to create a parallel state where those who are seen as damaging society – which for them includes trans women – are punished or killed.”
El Salvador
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s promises for a futuristic “Bitcoin City” have yet to materialize, but the real-life residents of Conchagua have already been forced to sell their land to make room for it. Those who dare to oppose have faced arrest and harassment under the ongoing state of exception, reports El Faro English.
Cuba
Almost 90 percent of Cubans will live in conditions of “extreme poverty” this year, according to a new study by Cuban Observatory of Human Rights. The study also revealed that 86% of Cuban households exist “on the margins of survival” and that, of these, 61% do not even have enough “to buy the essentials to survive.” (El País)
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei announced the creation of Unit of Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security, a special unit that will deal with cyberpatrolling on social media and the internet, the analysis of security cameras in real time and aerial surveillance using drones, among other things, reports El País.
Olympics
Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade is the strongest challenger to U.S. Olympian Simone Biles’ dominance in the field, but “the relationship between the pair, who are of similar ages and backgrounds, bears little of the animus that often characterizes rivalries among elite performers,” reports the Washington Post. “At competitions, they cheer each other on. And at crucial junctures in Andrade’s career, moments when she questioned whether she’d ever realize her potential, Biles has gone further, encouraging the athlete fated to be her top competitor.”