Laura Gamboa is an Assistant Professor of Democracy and Global Affairs at the Keough School at the University of Notre Dame.  She is an Affiliated Faculty of the Democratic Erosion Consortium and teaches the DEC Democratic Erosion university course. 

A month ago, on July 28, Venezuela held presidential elections. Against all odds, the opposition candidate, Edmundo González—an until then mostly unknown Venezuelan diplomat—won by a landslide. Yet despite abundant evidence that he lost, the incumbent, Nicolás Maduro, refuses to acknowledge the results. The government controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) declared the head of government victorious but—violating Venezuela’s law—has yet to show the tally sheets to prove the result. As time goes by, the question is not whether González won, but rather whether and under what conditions will the government acknowledge the results (if at all).

How to defeat a dictator?

Venezuela is, and has been for at least seven years, a dictatorship. Though it has held elections, these have not been minimally competitive since 2015, when it was still a competitive authoritarian regime. In the past ten years, opposition candidates and parties have been imprisoned, forced into exile, banned, or coopted. Without competition, up until this year, the government was able to win window-dressing national electoral contests with little to no effort.

Pressured by high levels of repression, the opposition had played into the hands of the government since 2015. Bitterly divided on how to defeat the government and surrounded by an international community more interested in pleasing radical domestic audiences than fostering a transition to democracy in Venezuela, the opposition became the victim of maximalists strategies such as a toothless interim government, an attempted coup, and an invasion that not only failed to foster regime change, but actually strengthened the Maduro government.

In October 2023, however, the opposition and the government struck a deal. Maduro would allow competitive (though not necessarily free or fair) presidential elections with international observers in 2024, in exchange (at least informally) for sanction relief and the release of some Venezuelan prisoners from the United States.

The path to the July elections wasn’t straightforward, though. Violating the spirit and letter of the agreement, the government set innumerable hurdles for the opposition. In an effort to rupture the fragile opposition unity created in 2023, it tried to sabotage the opposition primaries, banned Maria Corina Machado—elected by 2.2 out of the 2.5 million voters that participated in the primaries—from running for office, obstructed the registration of voters abroad (only 68,000 out of 7.8 million voters were allowed to vote), revoked the invitation to EU election observers, arrested members of the opposition campaign, closed or fined restaurants, hotels or private transportation companies that served, hosted, or drove the opposition candidate, and blocked several opposition witnesses’ ability to observe the electoral process on election day.

In the past, just half of these moves would have been enough to splinter the opposition. This time, though, the opposition did not give in. Armed with long-learned techniques used successfully in electoral campaigns in authoritarian settings across the world, González not only defeated Maduro (67% to 20%), but was able to prove it. Leveraging the support of political parties and civil society organizations, the opposition had built an organization with hundreds of thousands of trained volunteers that helped the campaign to navigate government harassment, mobilize voters, train and deploy electoral observers, organize parallel tabulation, and perhaps most importantly, collect 83% of electoral tallies within two days of the election. It was a massive blow to the government.

Sometimes winning is not enough

Despite incontrovertible evidence of González’s victory thanks to the opposition’s tally sheets, the government refuses to accept the results. On July 28, the National Electoral Council hastily certified Maduro’s victory, claiming he had obtained 51.21% of the votes vis-à-vis González’s 44.2%. Yet the CNE has still not published the vote tallies to support that result. Unlike other elections in the past, this time the opposition was ready to prove the government’s fraud. The opposition’s efforts to conduct parallel tabulations, and to copy, scan, or photograph the tally sheets of each polling station have made it nearly impossible for the government to legitimize its victory.

In an attempt to gain legitimacy, on July 31, Maduro asked the Supreme Court (TSJ) to audit the results. Not surprisingly, a couple of weeks later, the government-controlled high court ruled in favor of the CNE and certified the incumbent’s victory. The court’s decision has barely made a dent in the skepticism of domestic or international audiences. Nobody was fooled. Not only is it outside of the TSJ’s legal authority to certify an electoral outcome, but it has also refused to publish the tally sheets it allegedly audited. Recent reports suggest that the individuals who allegedly audited the tally sheets were in reality members of the CNE and the government party.

What now?

In response to the government’s unequivocal fraud, there have been both organic and more organized mobilizations. Low-income neighborhoods that use to be staunch Chavistas, or government supporters, went out on the streets to protest the very night of the election. María Corina Machado, the de facto opposition leader, has called for more organized, larger demonstrations (gathering mostly in upper middle-class neighborhoods) as well. The government has responded with a brutal repression, particularly against lower income populations. According to a recent report by Observatorio Venezolano de Conflictividad Social that focused on Miranda and the Capital District, 80% of the demonstrations between July 29 and 30 originated in low income neighborhoods, and a full 75% of those experienced repression. Likewise, although all opposition leaders have been the target of illegal searches, disappearances, illegal arrests and political prosecution, the authorities have focused mostly on the most vulnerable populations. As of August 6, at least 1,102 had been detained and killed, and on September 7, Gonzalez himself had to leave Venezuela in exile.

Internationally, the majority of the democratic countries of the world have recognized Gonzalez’s victory. Yet despite mounting international opposition, there is no clear path forward. A month after the election, the opposition’s mobilization has been unable to increase Maduro’s cost of holding on to power. Neither the military nor its authoritarian coalition have given signals they are willing to defect. The international pressure has been generally weak as well. While the United States, Europe, and most Latin American countries believe the results provided by the CNE are fraudulent, it is unclear what if anything they are willing or able to do to pressure Maduro to accept the true results. In an attempt to facilitate some sort of negotiation, left-wing presidents like Lula Da Silva (Brazil) and Gustavo Petro (Colombia), who are close to Maduro’s government, have produced cautiously worded statements that give Maduro the benefit of the doubt while also asking the CNE to publish the tally sheets. The tame statements have kept the channels of dialogue open, but none of the alternatives floated so far –everything from a shared government arrangement to new elections—seems to appeal to the government or to the opposition.

The opposition is well aware of its conundrum and is willing to negotiate some type of amnesty for government officials. It is unclear, however, if it is willing to accept anything else. At the end of the day, unless demonstrations or international pressure can break the authoritarian coalition or sever Maduro’s control over the armed forces, there is little the opposition can do to enforce the election results.

To make matters worse, the clock is running out. The more time goes by, the less momentum the opposition has, and it is unlikely Venezuela will get another opportunity to get any concessions from the government. This is especially true if, as many fear, the government turns even more authoritarian in response to its clear electoral defeat.