On January 10th, 2025, Nicolás Maduro declared himself President of Venezuela, making this his third presidential mandate. About six months before, on July 28th, 2024, Venezuela held elections, where the opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia, backed by Maria Corina Machado, won with 70% of the vote—according to opposition sources. However, the Head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) and a close friend of Maduro, Elvis Amoroso, claimed that Maduro had won 51% of the vote without providing sufficient evidence or allowing an independent audit to check the results. The international community and millions of Venezuelans have rejected these “official results” as they place doubts on Maduro and the state-controlled CNE. Outraged, Venezuelans took to the streets to protest, where they were met with police violence. The opposition has vowed to continue the fight, and their campaign slogan, “hasta el final” (until the end), exemplifies not just their perseverance but also the millions of Venezuelans who are hungry for change.
Where it all began
Venezuela has been under the socialist PSUV party for about 25 years. Firstly, under the leadership of Hugo Chávez, who, according to Venezuelan law, should have ended his term in 2003. This was, knowingly, not the case; rather, Chávez changed the constitution and took control of every aspect of civil and military life. After he died in 2013, his right-hand man, Nicolás Maduro, took control. The PSUV had managed to take control of key institutions like the Supreme Court and the CNE, weakening checks and balances and giving more power to the president.
After global oil prices plummeted in 2011, Venezuela, highly dependent on oil exports, went into a recession, causing inflation rates to skyrocket from 2012 to 2022. Additionally, malnutrition rates increased, and children began to starve to death. According to Human Rights Watch, more than 20 million Venezuelans live in multidimensional poverty without proper access to essential goods and services. Mismanagement by the government and U.S. sanctions have led to a decline in investment and oil production. Anti-government protests rose, but after years of police crackdown, they fizzled out. The economic and political crisis in Venezuela led to millions of people fleeing the country. With a population of 29.4 million, over the past 10 years, 7.7 million Venezuelans have left their country.
Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in a presidential election that was widely dismissed as fraudulent and anti-democratic. In 2019, opposition leader at the time, Juan Guaidó, declared himself “interim president” with the support of the National Assembly. However, the military stayed loyal to Maduro and remained in charge of the country. Maduro took control of the National Assembly in 2021—the only opposition-controlled government centre left. After years of support, in 2022, the opposition voted to dissolve Guaidó’s government and end his interim presidency, making it known that they had lost faith in his ability to meet promises, which further cemented Maduro’s power.
People did not turn out to vote for many years because there was a sense of collective disappointment and disillusionment with both Maduro and the opposition, as it was very fractured.
But, the more recent elections felt different. There was a higher sense of hope, and it came in the form of a woman called María Corina Machado, a former deputy of the National Assembly. She won the opposition primaries in 2023 by a landslide, signalling hope in the population and alarming Maduro’s government. It was the first time in more than a decade that the opposition organised a primary to select a single candidate. Although the regime blocked her candidacy and disqualified her from the presidential race, she did not give up and, in the end, was able to run with Edmundo González Urrutia as the candidate. Machado encouraged Venezuelans to support him under the Plataforma Unitaria Democratica, a coalition between 10 parties, showing a unification among the opposition unseen in previous years.
A Stolen Election?
There was widespread fear that the Maduro regime would resort to fraud to win the elections, as he did in 2018. Voting in Venezuela is electronic, and the results are sent to the CNE, but the machine prints out a receipt, which is placed in a ballot box. According to the law, parties are allowed to send witnesses to count these paper receipts at polling stations, but many were prevented from doing so. The opposition anticipated this, so they urged citizens to secure copies or images of the tally sheets. They claim to possess documents that cover more than 80% of voting tables, confirming that Edmundo González won the elections, which match the exit polls and pre-election opinion polls. But, unlike in previous elections, the CNE has not yet published the official results of the detailed vote counts.
After Maduro claimed his win in July, thousands went out to protest, during which around 2,000 people were detained, and more than 20 were killed. In early January, Maduro’s inauguration speech also invoked protests not just in Venezuela but worldwide. Machado was briefly arrested after addressing a protest rally by security forces. Edmundo González had promised to return to Venezuela to take power after he had to flee to Spain in September when the government issued an arrest warrant for him. However, this seemed impossible given that Maduro ordered a 72-hour closure of Venezuela’s air space and closed the border with Colombia. Edmundo González’s son-in-law was kidnapped by masked gunmen in Caracas, the country’s capital. Machado addressed the situation and told the public it was not safe for Gonazlez to return right to Venezuela just yet.
The beginning of the end, perhaps
Venezuelans’ desire to be freed from Maduro’s regime was clearly expressed on July 28th. Since then, repression against the opposition and civil society groups has increased. At the beginning of the year, military and police presence escalated all around Venezuela; just in the first 12 days of January, 83 people were detained for “political reasons.”
Despite fraudulent elections with a low legitimacy worldwide, Maduro’s government will be able to sustain itself so long as he has the support of the military. There are signs that the armed forces are a bit fragmented; however, this is difficult to say from the outside.
As Donald Trump takes the White House, it becomes uncertain what the strategy towards Venezuela will be. The Trump administration put economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, intending to pressure Maduro, but it only worsened the humanitarian crisis. With migration as one of Trump’s main policy concerns, he might need to cooperate with Maduro to arrange mass deportations—which would entail his recognition as President of Venezuela.
The U.S. and neighbouring countries like Brazil and Colombia have attempted to help Venezuela achieve a democratic transition but have not been able to produce clear changes. While the outcome of the situation in Venezuela affects everyone, as a major petrostate, and external actors do play a role, the future of the country will ultimately be determined by what happens inside.
Chavismo holds Venezuela very tightly nowadays, but the opposition is more united now than it has ever been. Maduro was not able to divide and demobilise voters as he did in 2018. This unison, both within the opposition and the Venezuelan population, will hopefully mean Maduro will find it harder and harder to sustain his power.
The fight for freedom in Venezuela is not just about rebuilding a democracy; it is also about rebuilding an entire country whose economy and society were destroyed by a brutal dictatorship.
Machado’s leadership is strong and inspiring. She and Edmundo González hold great support around the world from Venezuelans and non-Venezuelans alike. And she, with the public, will continue fighting, hasta el final.
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