Venezuela: Far-Right Opposition Rejects Election Results, Attempts to Launch Guarimbas
Orinoco Tribune, July 30, 2024 —
As the leaders of the Venezuelan government have already announced, the Venezuelan far-right opposition led by María Corina Machado and supported by Washington has rejected the results of Sunday’s Venezuelan presidential elections announced by the National Electoral Council (CNE).
After CNE president Elvis Amoroso announced the first electoral bulletin shortly before midnight, Machado addressed her followers this Monday, July 29, saying that the results “were impossible.”
In the first electoral bulletin, the CNE announced that, with 80% of the votes counted, the winning candidate of the presidential elections was Nicolás Maduro with 51.20%. For his part, the subrogate opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia obtained 4,445,978 votes, representing 44.2%. This gives Maduro a margin of seven percentage points over González.
According to Machado, “it is impossible to reconcile [the results] with all the information we have.” Furthermore, in her statements, she told her followers that Edmundo González is the actual elected president of Venezuela with 70% of the votes, a figure that goes against any analysis of the far-right’s current or historical electoral record.
“We want to tell all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect, and it is Edmundo González… González Urrutia obtained 70% of the votes and Nicolás Maduro 30%. This is the truth,” said the far-right opposition politician in clear violation of Venezuela’s electoral regulations.
During her statement to the press, Machado also mentioned that “all the rules” were violated during the process. However, she did not mention that she had violated the electoral law in the early afternoon by usurping the CNE’s functions and saying that the turnout was very high.
This Sunday, Venezuelans went to the polling stations to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right in a quick and reliable process, respecting the electoral referee who guaranteed the confidentiality of the vote.
Guarimbas 2.0
During the ceremony in the National Electoral Council (CNE) headquarters officially pronouncing President Maduro the certified president-elect, the Venezuelan president strongly condemned what he called a guarimba 2.0. Guarimbas are the violent far-right protests that the Venezuelan opposition has launched on several occasions over the years in an attempt to remove Chavismo from power in Venezuela. The latest bloody guarimbas in Venezuela were in 2014 and 2017.
This Monday, Caracas woke up with most businesses closed, little traffic, and few people walking on the streets—a scene reminiscent of the 2017 guarimbas. Several videos spread on social media alleging incidents of violence, but many of them were manipulated videos. Apart from some demonstrators temporarily blocking the highway that connects Caracas with La Guaira city and an unsuccessful cacerolazo protest at noon, no relevant incidents have been reported.
In the afternoon, the escalation of guarimbas was noticeable, with street blockades, lynchings, and other crimes promoted by the far-right reported in El Rosal, EL Silencio, El Paraiso, Plaza Altamira, Petare, and La Vega.
Orinoco Tribune has reported extensively on social media regarding several incidents of fascist violence in Caracas. According to our coverage on the ground, many rioters appeared to belong to criminal gangs, and only a small percentage of them seemed to be the affluent supporters of the Venezuelan far-right.
During the night, there has been an atmosphere of relative calm but with an air of tension in the downtown Caracas area. The strong presence of law enforcement agencies was also noticeable in most parts of Caracas, providing some assurances to the majority of Venezuelans that authorities would not allow the revival of the guarimbas.
Meanwhile, a massive disinformation campaign is spreading via social media to misrepresent the reality of the elections and guarimbas. Journalist Alan MacLeod from MintPress News, currently in Caracas covering the elections, posted a clear analysis on social media about a small part of this new smear campaign against Chavismo.