Maduro bows to pressure for judicial audit of election results as Argentina’s Milei encourages protests

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has bowed to pressure from protesters and neighboring countries alike and called for an audit of the recent presidential election while continuing to verbally spar with rival leaders such as Argentina’s Javier Milei.

“The fraud carried out and perpetrated by the dictator Nicolás Maduro is nothing less than a Pyrrhic victory,” Milei said in a video posted on TikTok, according to a translation by The Wall Street Journal. “He may believe he has won a battle. However, the most important thing is that the Venezuelan lions have awakened, and sooner or later socialism will come to an end.”

Maduro on Wednesday asked the country’s Supreme Court to conduct an audit of the election, responding to claims from the opposition that they had won the election and international claims that the election was not fair and free. Maduro told reporters that his party had the electoral tally sheets and was ready to share them, The Associated Press reported. 

“The serious doubts that have arisen around the Venezuelan electoral process can lead its people to a deep violent polarization with serious consequences of permanent division,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro wrote on social media platform X. 

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“I invite the Venezuelan government to allow the elections to end in peace, allowing a transparent vote count, with the counting of votes, and with the supervision of all the political forces of its country and professional international supervision,” Petro added. 

Anti-government protests have continued in the days following the election, which the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council handed to the incumbent with an alleged victory margin of 51% compared to 44% support for opposition. 

However, pre-election polling (which is illegal in the country) showed that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had double the support that Maduro and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) had. 

Venezuelans took to the streets in peaceful protest, but Maduro sent out police to crackdown on them and to clear the streets, leading to violent clashes and escalation. Protesters pulled down statues of Hugo Chavez to express their rage over the result and the alleged fraud.

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The Carter Center, a non-for-profit started by former President Jimmy Carter to advance human rights, determined that Venezuela’s election “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.”

“The Carter Center cannot verify or corroborate the results of the election declared by the National Electoral Council (CNE), and the electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles,” the center wrote in a statement. 

“The election took place in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organizations, and the media,” the center added. “Throughout the electoral process, the CNE demonstrated a clear bias in favor of the incumbent.”

Maduro first secured office in 2013 as Chavez’s handpicked successor, but many within and outside the country have alleged from the start that PSUV has effectively ruled as a dictatorship, leading to opposition parties boycotting the 2018 election before deciding to unite behind Gonzalez in the most recent contest. 

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Milei was among the first regional leaders to call the victory an “electoral scam” and Maduro a “fraud,” with other countries, including Chile, demanding Maduro publish proof of his victory, such as the districty-by-district breakdown of vote tallies — all of which Maduro has ignored, prompting further protests. 

Maduro has responded to Milei’s statements by insulting him — calling him a “cowardly bug,” a “traitor to the homeland” and “fascist” — and challenging Milei to a direct confrontation, saying, “You couldn’t stand a round against me,” the Buenos Aires Herald reported.

A plainclothes military intelligence officer, who didn’t identify himself, told journalists the country is “at war” and that any effort to disrespect Chávez was offensive to millions of Venezuelans who revered the former army paratrooper and anti-imperialist icon. 

Maduro said several people had been arrested in the attacks, which he likened to the images from revolutions pushed by the U.S. in post-Soviet states, including Ukraine and Georgia. 

“What do these people have in their head? In the heart?” Maduro asked in a televised address Monday night in which he broadcast images of some of the attacks. “Just imagine if they one day gain power here, what they would be capable of doing.”

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Attorney General Tarek William Saab also issued arrest warrants for Gonzalez and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, accusing them of attacking the electoral system without “proof,” according to Voice of America. 

Maduro and National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez also called for the arrest of opposition leadership, accusing them of perpetuating a “fascist conspiracy.” 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.