On July 28, 2024, Venezuela held one of its most contentious elections in decades. Incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, faced an invigorated opposition that, after overcoming legal and other barriers to their campaign, consistently outperformed the government’s candidate in the polls. Despite these developments, and contradicting preliminary results from independent exit polls, the government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) declared on July 28 that Maduro had secured a third presidential term by a narrow margin. This announcement came without presenting any concrete evidence of Maduro’s victory, as the electoral body did not release the vote tallies, sparking strong criticism from independent external observers invited by Maduro’s government.

Joining the denunciation from independent observers and the Venezuelan opposition, a wide array of Latin American governments rejected Maduro’s claim to victory in the following days. In a region deeply divided along ideological lines, the unified call from governments with starkly opposed political views to guarantee the transparency of the process and its results, before granting any recognition to Maduro’s win, marked a shift from the partisan split that characterized the region’s reaction to events in Venezuela in the past. Prominent regional left-wing leaders, such as Brazil’s President Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, have joined the call to secure the integrity of the process, declaring that no result will be recognized until the vote tallies are presented.
This demand for transparency reflects the shared understanding that only free and fair elections, with full disclosure of electoral results, can grant democratic legitimacy to an elected government. This is a critical standard that, with some exceptions, seems to currently underline the position of the majority Latin American governments, in a region that in the recent past has had its fair share of manipulation of electoral processes.
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By Nicolas Soto (University LUISS Guido Carli)