The Shocking Turn of Events in Venezuela 2024 Elections

The faces are filled with astonishment. As the vote counts come in from all over Venezuela, following the elections held on July 28, the people locked in the building realize that something serious is happening that needs to be reported to the president. Nicolás Maduro had received dozens of dossiers during the electoral campaign with studies, polls, focus groups, and all kinds of sophisticated methods endorsed by the most prestigious universities. In all of them, victory was his. Among these advisors, there was one who offered to cut off his hand if it was proven that he was wrong. However, the communications reaching the National Electoral Council (CNE) in Caracas prove that the advisors were wrong, according to a highly placed source. This person had been observing for days with surprise the self-deception to which the top echelons of the Government were subjecting themselves. Now, the truth has been revealed and there is nothing but sorrow and turmoil. In that moment of shock, six months of chavista flight forward begin with a single purpose: to maintain power at all costs.

The Uphill Battle After the Election Results

Over the following days, Maduro hardly sleeps. He increases his public appearances. He looks tired, irritable, with a serious tone known well by his closest allies. He only relaxes for brief moments when exchanging glances and gestures of complicity with the love of his life, Cilia Flores. The elections were supposed to legitimize him in the eyes of the rest of the world’s presidents. To have the United States lift sanctions on oil and gold and for the Venezuelan economy, which had grown in the past two years, to soar once and for all. It was an opportunity to walk through multilaterals without being ignored or gossiped about behind his back. At the same time, it was time to twist the arm of Cilia’s adversary, the woman he despises the most in this world, the opposition leader María Corina Machado. In her presence, his advisors referred to her as “that,” “the unmentionable,” “the crazy one.” She had to be destroyed, eliminated, exterminated at the polls. But the plans had not gone well.

Over 160 days of conflict between the Government and the opposition unfurl before the eyes of the world. This dispute over who is the true winner of the elections reaches its climax on January 10, the inauguration day. Maduro has reiterated that nothing will prevent him from donning the presidential sash and remaining in the Miraflores Palace for another six years, a neoclassical-style mansion where he often sleeps for fear of being killed. He has deployed troops across the country, ordered inspections of barracks, and searched under mattresses for signs of betrayal. Edmundo González Urrutia, who has been on tour in the Americas since this past weekend, has stated that he will be the one stepping out onto the balcony on Friday as the newly appointed president, as dictated by the polls. The United States maintains that it will help him achieve his goal but has not revealed how. In Venezuela, in the streets, there is a sense that something big is about to happen.

The suspicion that Maduro committed fraud arises within minutes of his victory announcement, at midnight on the 28th. In the first minutes of the 29th, the President of the CNE, Elvis Amoroso, a close friend of the Maduro-Flores couple, was legally required to display the vote records, but he did not do so in those days and never will. This prompts tens of thousands of Venezuelans to take to the streets, discontented with the turn of events.

Statues of Hugo Chávez are toppled with hammers, his busts are trampled, tires are burned. The atmosphere is toxic. This unleashes the largest crackdown the country has seen in the last 60 years. Authorities arrest more than 2,000 people, including many protesters, but also people who have mocked chavismo on TikTok. Police and the secret service break down the doors of fishermen and street vendors who have been reported by their neighbors, whether for being anti-Chávez or for some personal grudge. Madness reigns.