‘We Won And Everyone Knows It’: Two Candidates Claim Victory In Venezuela’s Hotly Disputed Presidential Elections

Both major candidates in Venezuela’s 2024 presidential elections claimed victory on Sunday amid domestic and international concerns that the process may have been rigged, according to multiple reports.

Incumbent President Nicolás Maduro, widely considered a dictator and deeply unpopular among the Venezuelan population, gathered 51% of the vote on Sunday, while his opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez, won only 44% of the vote, according to the National Electoral Council (NCE), CNN reported. But Maduro’s opposition claimed that independent polling showed that Gonzalez actually won 70% of the vote, beating out Maduro in a landslide victory.

“We won, and everyone knows it,” opposition leader Maria Corina told reporters, according to CNN. “The entire international community knows what happened in Venezuela and how people voted for change.”

Protests almost immediately broke out across Venezuela in retaliation for Maduro’s dubious claim to victory. Some members of the international community immediately called into question the legitimacy of the election results and urged political transparency.

“We’ve seen the announcement just a short while ago by the Venezuelan electoral commission. We have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a press conference on Sunday, according to Reuters.

“GET OUT, MADURO, YOU DICTATOR!!!” Argentinian President Javier Milei wrote in a social media post on Sunday, as translated by The Guardian. “Venezuelans chose to put an end to Nicolás Maduro’s communist dictatorship. The data shows a crushing opposition victory and the world is waiting for the defeat of years of socialism, misery, decadence and death to be recognized.”

Maduro, a socialist, was first elected to office in 2013, and Venzeula’s economy delved into a steep decline following his ascent to power. Severe widespread poverty and lack of access to basic goods have prompted millions of Venezuelans to flee the country over the last decade.

After Maduro was elected, the U.S. began imposing sanctions on the country’s government, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Maduro’s reelection in 2018 was seen as fraudulent, prompting U.S. condemnation, according to the Guardian. The Biden administration lifted some sanctions against Venezuela in 2023 in exchange for the promise of free and fair elections this year, but reimposed sanctions in April after raising concerns that little had changed.

Maduro claimed that foreign actors had attempted to disrupt the election on Sunday.

“This is not the first time that they have tried to violate the peace of the republic,” he told a small gathering of supporters outside the presidential palace on Sunday, but he did not provide evidence for his claims, according to the AP.