Tangle - The election in Venezuela, explained.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Quick hits.

1. Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was involved in ceasefire negotiations, was assassinated in Iran after attending the inauguration of the country's new president. (The assassination) Separately, Israel said it killed a top Hezbollah commander in Lebanon in retaliation for a strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 young Druze. (The strike)
2. Vice President Kamala Harris said she'll hold a rally with her running mate in Philadelphia next Tuesday, meaning she'll announce her decision in the next six days. (The announcement)
3. An Israeli court opened an initial hearing for nine soldiers accused of sexually abusing Palestinians at a facility where Israel has held prisoners from Gaza. The investigation has stoked tension between hardline nationalists and Israel's military command. (The allegations)
4. Project 2025 said its director Paul Dans was stepping down from the Heritage Foundation and it was ending its policy work amid criticisms from former President Donald Trump and Democrats. (Note: We interviewed Dans for our piece on project 2025). (The departure)
5. Kari Lake defeated Mark Lamb in Arizona’s closely watched Republican Senate primary. Lake will face Democrat Ruben Gallego in November. (The results)

Today's topic.

The Venezuelan election. On Monday, the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela announced that President Nicolás Maduro had won Venezuela's presidential election, defeating challenger Edmundo González by a total of 51% to 44%. The results were immediately contested, with leaders from a coalition of opposition parties claiming that vote tallies they received showed González up by 40 points. Protests over the results of the election broke out in cities across Venezuela, with police deploying tear gas to control a crowd in Caracas, the nation’s capital. 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had “serious concerns” that the results did not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people. The recent results have now been deemed fraudulent by Argentina and several U.S. entities, while other neighboring countries have called for an audit.

Back up: Venezuela is an oil-rich country in South America where Nicolás Maduro has served as president for over a decade. The country has suffered economic hardship and hyperinflation during his term, with the nation’s inflation indicator at one point reaching 130,000%. Since 2015, 7.7 million people have fled the country. 

Maduro first assumed the presidency in an interim role as a member of the far-left United Socialist Party following the death of President Hugo Chávez in 2013. In a special election later that year, Maduro was elected by a 1.5% margin over challenger Henrique Capriles, who challenged the results as illegitimate. Maduro was then re-elected in 2018, though the result was disputed within Venezuela and abroad. 

What happened recently: In April, President Joe Biden reintroduced sanctions against Venezuela, following a six-month reprieve, for the Maduro administration’s failure to comply with a deal to allow a fair voting process in this year’s election.

Opposition parties rallied around González after their original candidate, María Corina Machado, was barred from running by Venezuela’s highest court over claims of financial impropriety as a national legislator. Machado had won an opposition-organized primary with over 90% of the vote and remained the face of the opposition movement, campaigning alongside González, who was widely viewed as her proxy. Polls showed González’s Democratic Unitary Platform significantly ahead of Maduro’s United Socialist Party heading into the election.

On Monday, Machado told supporters that the opposition had access to about 70% of the voting tabulations, claiming they showed González leading Maduro by over three million votes. “We won, and everyone knows it,” said Machado during a news conference.

The CNE maintains that the results of the election are legitimate. Maduro condemned the demonstrations, saying that González is responsible for any violence. Venezuela’s allies – including China, Cuba, Russia, and Bolivia – congratulated Maduro for his victory.

Below, we’ll get into what the left, right, and Venezuelan writers are saying about the election. Then, my take.

What the left is saying.

• The left is mostly concerned by the election results, suggesting a tainted election could further destabilize Venezuela.
• Some reject the claims of voter fraud and argue the U.S. tried to meddle in the election.

The Washington Post editorial board asked “will democracies fight for Venezuela?”

“Venezuela’s years-long crisis has now reached its peak. It demands urgent action from the United States and democracies around the world. In Sunday’s general election, the opposition led by Edmundo González and María Corina Machado resoundingly defeated President Nicolás Maduro, but he has fraudulently claimed victory. This blatant attempted electoral theft cannot stand,” the board wrote. “The United States and every nation that values electoral competition, rule of law and democratic transfer of power has an obligation to recognize that the opposition are the true winners and to demand that Mr. Maduro submit to the will of the people.”

“The stakes are enormous for what was once a prosperous anchor of all Latin America… If Mr. Maduro persists in clinging to power, another million or more may soon depart, creating a wave of desperate new arrivals at the borders of its South American neighbors and, eventually, the United States. Moreover, the United States made two attempts in recent years — once under President Donald Trump and once under President Biden — to advance democracy against Mr. Maduro’s dictatorship. Now the opposition has united and, at U.S. urging, tried to make the most of the limited and manipulated democratic opening Mr. Maduro — pressured by U.S. sanctions — permitted.”

In CounterPunch, Roger Harris argued Maduro’s critics are crying wolf over election fraud.

“While the US corporate press refers to the ‘opposition’ as if it were a unified bloc, eight other names appeared on the ballot. Unlike the US, where most of the electorate is polarized around two major parties, the fractious opposition in Venezuela is split into many mutually hostile camps whose dislike of the ruling Socialist Party is matched by their loathing for each other. And this is despite millions of US tax-payer dollars used to try to unify a cabal that would carry Washington’s water,” Harris said. “The perennial accusations of fraud, trotted out every time the far-right gets rebuked by the voting public, were not reflected by the actions of the people on the ground as evidenced by their wholehearted participation.”

“Far greater than any accusation of fraud manufactured by the far-right opposition is the much more significant interference in the electoral process by Washington. The vote for continuing the Bolivarian Revolution represents a mandate for national sovereignty. Venezuelans went to the polls knowing that a vote for the incumbent meant no relief from US unilateral coercive measures. These so-called ‘sanctions’ have been part of Washington’s failed regime-change campaign explicitly designed to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy and turn the people against their government.”

What the right is saying.

• The right is skeptical of the election results and criticizes the Biden administration for its deal with Maduro’s government.
• Some say Venezuela will never have free elections as long as Maduro is in power.

National Review’s editors wrote about “Venezuela’s stolen election.”

“When Venezuelans went to the polls, they had no meaningful chance of ending Chavismo’s stranglehold on their country. But their efforts were nothing short of heroic: Media reports say that they braved threats of violence and faced gunfire as they lined up to vote,” the editors said. “Now the Biden administration must carefully consider its next steps. It is waiting for the electoral council to publish precinct-level results (or not) and for statements of concern to come in from other governments. There have been a few such statements already, including from Javier Milei and, surprisingly, from the leftist president of Chile, Gabriel Boric.”

“By waiting for the international community to react, and for the Maduro regime to publish the election results, the administration is just placing a fig leaf on its latest failed foreign policy. The Biden administration has chosen to enable the regime for three years through sanctions relief,” the editors wrote. “Administration officials argue that their deal is what got election observers into the country in the first place and made it possible for exit polls to be compiled. But looking at the broad sweep of Biden’s staggeringly naïve outreach to Venezuela now, it’s more obvious than ever that extending any form of relief to Maduro has done more harm than good.”

In The American Spectator, Scott McKay said “‘our democracy’ is on display in Venezuela.”

“It was fairly readily apparent that the Maduro regime in Venezuela was not going to allow itself to be turned out of power. That party has been running sham elections for the bulk, if not the entirety, of this century as it has destroyed the rule of law, turned itself into a massive exporter of people (some eight million émigrés out of a population which used to be around 29 million) and cratered its economy to the tune of an 80 percent reduction in GDP. If Venezuelan elections were real, Nicolás Maduro would have long ago been turned out of power,” McKay wrote.

“Was it stupid policy to slack off on the sanctions against the Venezuelan regime? Of course. Was the stupid policy the result of incompetence? Why, no, actually. They made it far more lucrative for Maduro to remain in office than to go away into retirement or exile after the true voice of the people could be heard. And then they’re going to act surprised when Maduro’s regime does whatever it takes to hang on to power,” McKay said. “Venezuelans are the leading nationality of the illegal migrants showing up on our border, which is an indication of what ‘Our Democracy’ can do.”

What writers in Venezuela are saying.

• Many writers in Venezuela cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election results, expressing fear for the country’s future. 
• Some, however, say the claims of fraud are unproven and argue Maduro is the rightful winner.

In El Universal, Fernando Neira Orjuela wrote about “Maduro's victory and uncertainty for Venezuela.” (Note: translated from the original Spanish)

“With the participation of only 59% of the electoral roll made up of 21.3 million Venezuelans, the ruling party’s suspicious triumph immediately spurred rejection from the candidate Edmundo González and the entire opposition that he represents, as well as from different international governments,” Orjuela said. “The way in which the entire election was carried out was marked by irregularities of all kinds, which led to the prediction that the government would not allow defeat, hence the international concern and demand for transparency in the vote.”

“If it is not possible to legally authorize the new election of Maduro as president, what lies ahead for Venezuela is an even more difficult path than the one it has already taken. On the one hand, social protests and ‘cacerolazos’ [a traditional Latin American protest of banging pots and pans] were quick to start and are expected to continue for several days inside and outside Venezuelan territory. This will lead to increased tension between different sectors of the population, with predictable repression by the authorities,” Orjuela wrote. “Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that migratory flows will increase, although not to the levels of previous years.”

In Últimas Noticias, Oscar Bravo said “Venezuela won.” (Note: translated from the original Spanish)

“The most radical anti-Chavez far right was never going to recognize the election results, when ‘coincidentally’ of the ten presidential candidates, only the poster-boy candidate did not sign the agreement to accept the official bulletins issued by the National Electoral Council, and now they claim without any conclusive, convincing and verifiable evidence, that they were robbed of a presidential election that they ‘won by a landslide,’” Bravo wrote. “Radical political groups do not accept under any circumstances that they have lost elections; they will always say that they have won absolutely.”

“And this last presidential election for the anti-Chavez extremists has not been the exception. They need to create the idea of gigantic fraud committed by the national government, as a way of not handing over power by any means, for which they are generating all possible conditions to reestablish riots, street violence and social chaos,” Bravo said. “However, radical anti-Chavez supporters have a hard time recognizing the powerful political force of Chavismo, when they continue to underestimate the capacity for mobilization in electoral processes by a solid and proven vote.”

My take.

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• The evidence makes it very clear that Venezuela’s election was not free and fair.
• If Maduro continues to lead Venezuela, it’s on track for more of the same — more economic hardship, more internal unrest, and more mass emigration.
• Personally, I think the U.S. should work with Latin American countries to force Maduro to recognize that he’s been voted out.

The election in Venezuela was not free or fair, and Maduro almost certainly did not win the popular vote. 

Aside from a few far-left commentators whose coverage of the election reads like a mix of antiquated anti-CIA pronunciamento and Maduro-approved propaganda, this assessment was widely shared across the right and left. That’s encouraging, because consensus can help create the political will to advance smart, sustainable solutions to aid the millions of Venezuelans struggling under a failed government.

Before we dive into what should happen next, I think it’s important to highlight key points about last weekend’s election:

• Opposition candidate Edmundo González and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado claim they’ve obtained more than 70% of the vote tally sheets, which they say show González doubling Maduro’s vote count. Those results would align with the findings of pre-election polls that showed González significantly outpacing Maduro.
• Election observers, who have a legal right to a copy of each voting machine's tally, allege that some witnesses were blocked from tracking the counts or weren’t provided with printed tallies.
• The Carter Center, one of the few outside groups invited by the Maduro government to observe the vote, says it has been unable to verify the results of the election.
• Venezuela’s Supreme Court decision to disqualify Machado from running for president was very sketchy, and it’s hard not to see it as Maduro trying to prevent the opposition from fielding their strongest candidate.
• When various opposition groups rallied around a new candidate to replace Machado, the new candidate was similarly barred from running just days before the candidate registration deadline — also very suspicious.
• Maduro’s government effectively controls the country’s voting system through the CNE — a loyal electoral council — and a network of local party coordinators with nearly unrestricted access to voting centers. 
• Maduro and his allies say the opposition leaders planned a cyber attack against the country’s electoral apparatus during the vote, a likely smokescreen for their delay in releasing the full vote results. 
• During the campaign, the Venezuelan government allegedly closed or inspected 22 businesses after they provided services to Machado. Scores of individuals were reportedly punished for their association with her.
• Some poll watchers claim that authorities refused to finalize the tallies at stations where opposition candidates won; others said armed pro-government groups refused to allow them to leave their polling stations. 
• Before the election, Maduro said there would be a “bloodbath” if he didn’t win.

So, yes — the election was fraudulent. And the outcome is especially disheartening because Machado, who remained the face of the campaign after she was disqualified from running, seems like a leader who could have inspired genuine change. Though she calls herself a “centrist liberal,” Machado is undeniably conservative, praising Margaret Thatcher and backing ideas like privatizing state-owned companies. But her politics are secondary to what she’s come to represent to the Venezuelan people, particularly working-class voters championed by Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez: a real democratic movement. 

Instead, Venezuela seems headed for more of the same. According to Human Rights Watch, around 19 million people in the country are unable to access adequate health care and nutrition, over 26% of children aren’t in school, and more than 15,800 Venezuelans have been subjected to politically motivated arrests since 2014. Roughly one-quarter of the country’s population has left in the past decade; millions more could soon follow. The New York Times’s Julie Turkewitz observed that only countries in the midst of war experience this kind of mass exodus (and Venezuela is not, at least not yet). 

Mass migration out of Venezuela is also a problem for the U.S. In 2021, around 545,000 Venezuelans fled to the U.S. In 2023, border authorities recorded over 65,000 encounters with Venezuelan migrants in just the first four months of the fiscal year. With (at least) six more years of Maduro, the problem is likely to worsen. 

So what can be done? To date, the answer has been sanctions. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Venezuela since 2006, and the Trump administration escalated those efforts with the goal of forcing Maduro out of power. Biden largely kept these measures in place until last October, when his administration made a deal to ease sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and gas sectors in return for Maduro committing to hold a fair election this year. After Machado was barred from running, Biden reimposed the sanctions. 

Despite the sanctions, and Venezuela’s economy cratering between 2014 and 2020, Maduro has proven adept at holding onto power. Economically, analysts are mixed on the effect of the sanctions, with some attributing Venezuela’s economic strife to Maduro’s mismanagement, while others suggest external factors — like changing relationships with other Latin American countries — are more impactful. Now, Republicans are calling on Biden to turn the sanctions up to 11. Maduro and major oil companies would be sure to feel the pressure of sanctions on the country’s energy sector, but so would the Venezuelan people, all but ensuring their continued migration to the U.S. and Latin American countries. 

I can understand why some people think that the U.S. should just accept the reality that Maduro is staying in power and work with his government to improve the humanitarian situation — even if it means legitimizing his rule. But ultimately I think the U.S. should join an international pressure campaign to force Maduro to recognize the election results and leave office now. If that effort fails, though, the U.S. will need to maintain some relationship with Maduro to prevent the migrant crisis from spiraling further, and calculated sanctions should still be a factor in that relationship.

The temporary unity of the opposition parties around Machado (and González) makes this a unique moment for Venezuela, and it could be the country’s last chance to oust Maduro and move toward a healthier democracy. For now, the U.S. — along with Brazil, Panama, and other Latin American countries — should continue to demand a full accounting of the vote while working through diplomatic channels to dissuade Maduro from taking escalatory action, like jailing Machado. 

It’s hard not to feel despondent about Venezuela’s future under Maduro, but it’s clear that many Venezuelans will continue fighting for change even when the deck is stacked against them. It’s in our interest to have their backs.

Take the survey: How do you think the U.S. should respond to Venezuela’s election? Let us know!

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Your questions, answered.

Q: What should residents of a "safe" district do to affect change? How do I get my leaders to take action on what matters to me?

— Drew from Castle Pines, CO

Tangle: It depends on what you mean by affecting change, but there are a few tried and true things you can do. First, voting — at every level — is vitally important. Even if a candidate you don’t like (or one that you really support) seems destined to win an election, the big parties and their funders always notice when a candidate over-performs or under-performs in an election. 

You can also have a huge impact on down-ballot races, especially at the local level, where a handful of votes can make a big difference. If you’re involved with an issue group that rallies around a cause, you can influence outcomes by working with local or state politicians on your issue. In fact, over time, you’ll probably get local politicians to come to your group for an endorsement! My advice is always: Start with your neighbors, and work out from there.

Lastly, you can move the needle with all the boring stuff — calling representatives, sending letters, emailing your party’s local chair. Readers complain to me all the time about our political system, and I think many of these complaints are well founded. But I think you’d be surprised how reactive the system can be once you really roll up your sleeves and get involved, especially if you’re working with a group. There is genuine power in numbers, so don’t be afraid to organize meetups or try to bring people together who care about the same issues you do.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

Kamala Harris has a host of high-profile billionaire backers in the world of corporate finance, despite her sometimes contentious relationship with Wall Street. Among the most well known are Blackstone President Jonathan Gray, Avenue Capital Management CEO Marc Larsy, and hedge-fund baron George Soros. Recently, Harris pressed Wall Street donors to make their donations as soon as possible, a message they believe means she is going to tap a current governor for vice president (there is a financial rule that bars contributions to tickets featuring a sitting governor). Forbes and Axios have the stories. 

Numbers.

• 65%. The percentage of Venezuelan voters who said they supported opposition candidate Edmundo González in Sunday’s election, according to exit polling by Edison Research. 
• 31%. The percentage of Venezuelan voters who said they supported Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the election. 
• 11. The confirmed number of deaths resulting from protests of the election results in Venezuela.
• 750. The approximate number of arrests that have been made during the protests.
• 24%. Maduro’s approval rating in 2018.
• 26%. The percentage of Venezuelans who say they have confidence in the honesty of their elections, down from 59% in 2012, according to a 2023 Gallup poll. 
• 27%. The percentage of Venezuelans who say they would like to permanently move to another country. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about “Bidenomics.”
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the ad in our free edition for the AquaVault charge card.
• Nothing to do with politics: One of the funniest live mistakes from a sports announcer in recent memory.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,603 readers took our survey about President Joe Biden’s court reforms with 82% supporting a Supreme Court code of conduct and ethics. “If it ain’t broke don’t try to fix it. Besides some ethical standards nothing seems broken,” one respondent said. Readers were given the option to select multiple options.

Have a nice day.

A recent study indicated that primary-care doctors can now identify Alzheimer’s using blood tests, marking an important step towards faster diagnoses and earlier treatment for patients. While no blood tests have yet been FDA-approved, 16 tests are currently being developed. Combined with new drugs to slow Alzheimer’s progression, these blood tests may prove crucial to many individuals suffering from the disease and allow testing to become far more accessible. Axios has the story. 

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