Maduro claims victory, leaving Venezuela with three congresses amid fraud claims
The Nicolás Maduro regime claimed to garner 67% of the votes in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, declaring it had control of Venezuela’s National Assembly while many throughout the world alleged the voting was fraudulent.
The elections created the strange scenario in which
Venezuela will now have three congresses. The National Assembly under control of opposition leader Juan Guaidó has announced it will continue operating as the country’s legitimate legislative body even after the new regime-controlled legislators are sworn in in January.
QUESTIONS OVER HOW MANY VOTED
According to the regime, at least 31% of the country’s registered voters participated in the election, but the number contrasted with the empty voting stations that international news outlets reported throughout the day. Independent poll takers said the actual voting was much lower, amounting to less than 20% of those registered.
The Maduro regime already had its own parallel legislative body before the election in the controversial Constituent National Assembly (ANC), which Maduro set up in an irregular election in 2017 to bypass the legitimate legislative body controlled by the opposition.
No plans have been announced for the future of the ANC, but Maduro would probably move to dismantle it once his new congress settles in, analysts said.
The elections, which was boycotted by the main opposition parties, led to a new round of international criticism, with the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Germany saying they won’t recognize the results.
Other nations followed suit, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Saint Lucía.
“On December 6, the illegitimate Maduro regime in Venezuela staged a political farce intended to look like legislative elections. Fortunately, few were fooled. The United States, along with numerous other democracies around the world, condemns this charade which failed to meet any minimum standard of credibility,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a news release.
“Maduro brazenly rigged these elections in his favor through the illegal seizure of political parties’ names and ballot logos, manipulation of the process by his loyalist electoral council, violence and intimidation, and other undemocratic tactics,” he said, adding that Washington will continue backing Guaidó, considering him to be the legitimate president of the nation.
The regime had announced hours before that its coalition, Great Patriotic Pole, had obtained 67.6% of the votes cast on Sunday. The rest of the vote went to four other coalitions.They say they are independent, but the main opposition parties say they have ties to Maduro so he could say that his candidates ran against opponents.
If those votes add up to two-thirds of the 277 seats in play, Maduro can claim he has a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. That, in theory, would grant him special powers that the Constitution denies to the simple majority of 50% plus one vote in the legislature.
Opposition leaders, however, downplayed the distinction, that Maduro has for years been ignoring the Constitution and the laws and has been ruling by decrees as if he already had absolute powers.
ACCESS TO FOREIGN CREDIT AT STAKE
That said, Maduro wanted to have control of the National Assembly, not the Constituent National Assembly, because he had been having difficulties in obtaining foreign credit without it, explained José Vicente Carrasquero, a political-science professor at Simón Bolívar University in Caracas.
“When they lost the National Assembly in 2015, they automatically lost access to the international credit because they could not get the National Assembly to back the issuance of new foreign debt,” Carrasquero said. “That’s when they went to invent the ANC, to see if people abroad would buy it.
“But since that didn’t work, they are now going ahead to take over the National Assembly by force, hoping that now they’d be able to issue new debt.”
The 2015 elected National Assembly, however, has no plans to step aside.
“We are not going to stop; we will stand firm and keep functioning to fulfill our constitutional mandate,” Guaidó, who is also president of the assembly, said Sunday in a video via Twitter.
“The legitimate National Assembly, and myself as interim president, will stay here next to you, assuming not only the principle of constitutional continuity, but also the responsibility of the parliament, defending the legitimate mandate entrusted to us by the Venezuelan people,” he said.