Image Source: REUTERS
On Monday, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was declared the winner of the presidential election for a third term, securing 51 percent of the vote according to the country’s electoral authority. This announcement came shortly after midnight with 80 percent of the ballot boxes counted.
Despite this official result, multiple exit polls had suggested that the opposition might be victorious. The electoral authority reported that Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition candidate, received 44 percent of the vote. However, before the final results were confirmed, Gonzalez had expressed optimism about the outcome, urging his supporters to keep a close watch on the vote counting process, suggesting that the opposition believed there was a potential for change.
In a preemptive response to the electoral outcome, opposition leader María Corina Machado appealed to Venezuela’s military to respect the will of the people. She used the social media platform X to call on the armed forces to side with the people’s desire for change, asserting that the results indicated a clear desire among Venezuelans to move away from Maduro’s leadership. Machado urged the military to seize this moment to align themselves with what she framed as the right side of history.
Historically, Venezuela’s military has been a strong supporter of Maduro, a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister. There have been no indications of any significant break within the armed forces from their traditional support of his government.
