It was the U.S., not Maduro, that tried to steal Venezuela’s 2024 elections

Venezuela Presidential Election: U.S. coup attempt defeated

Preparations for the U.S.-led coup attempt

Sep 8, 2024 — The people of Venezuela defeated a high-tech U.S.-led coup. The nation’s electoral authority held the 31st election since 1999 and, despite facing a colossal attack against the nation’s computerised electoral system, was able to announce the July 28 election results. The people of Venezuela, by re-electing President Maduro for the 2025-2031 term, emerged victorious against yet another U.S.-run “regime change” operation.

The coup plot involved a massive, sustained, months-long corporate media campaign spewing an unusually homogenous message: that President Maduro would be electorally defeated. Media outlets quoted “polls” giving U.S.-supported, extreme right-wing candidate Edmundo Gonzalez (fielded by the Unitary Platform coalition, PUD) 80% of the vote. On July 20, the Financial Times published “Is the game up for Venezuela’s ruling party after 25 years?”, stating that “most opinion polls suggest the opposition would crush Maduro by a margin of 20 to 30 points.” The mainstream media repeatedly quoted Maria Corina Machado “hoping” that “Nicolas Maduro accepts a negotiation process that allows an orderly and sustainable transition,” intended to persuade readers of the inevitability of Gonzalez’s victory.

The line taken by world corporate media—including The Guardian, El Pais, The New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, France 24, BBC, and Corriere de la Sera—was nearly identical in predicting Gonzalez’s victory. Did they know something we didn’t? There is only one center of power in the world with the might to command such obedience from corporate media, and it is in Washington, D.C.

Additionally, for several months before the election, Venezuela was subjected to a string of terrorist attacks targeting food storage facilities but mainly the country’s electricity system, with the obvious intention to damage it sufficiently to disable the computerised electoral system. Almost every time there is an election in Venezuela, terrorist attacks target the country’s electricity system (as happened in December 2021, a month after Chavismo massively won the November regional and municipal elections).

This mainstream media propaganda was supplemented by a campaign of fear (begun as early as April 2024) maintaining that in the “unlikely event” of President Maduro winning (contending this was only possible by rigging the election), a greater proportion of the population would leave the country. Media quoted “polls” asserting that up to 40% of Venezuelans—about 12 million people—would leave.

The coup attempt’s key ingredients

The corporate media bombardment was supplemented by an extreme right-wing media campaign of vicious hatred and threats not only against Chavistas but also other opposition presidential candidates and their families. The extreme right-wing verbal violence in social media was in full swing months before election day. An article in May 2024 prophesied:

This scenario of violence, exacerbated by political polarization and hate propaganda, creates a perfect breeding ground for social instability. The possibility of a scenario where violent groups try to sabotage the electoral process and impose their agenda by force is a latent threat that requires forceful measures to protect the peace of the country.

In Venezuela, opposition digital verbal violence around elections they lose has, in the past 25 years, unavoidably led to physical violence, including burning people alive and murdering many: about 20 in their 2002 failed coup, 11 in 2013, 43 in 2014, and 28 in 2017. All these events produced hundreds wounded and traumatized, with many crippled for life.

The cyberattack component

All of the above was supplemented by another component: a monumental cyberattack on election day, primarily targeting the CNE (National Electoral Council) computerised electoral system but also other state services. It was one of the worst such attacks against Venezuela.

According to Venezuela’s minister of science and technology, Gabriela Jimenez, the first phase of the cyberattack targeted CANTV (Venezuela’s main internet service provider) starting at about 6 p.m., just as polling centers began to close. The attack severely delayed transmission of polling centers’ results to the CNE totalizing center, hence the several hours it took to announce the results. CANTV’s contractor, U.S. company Columbus, reported to its client the deliberate cyber delay of transmissions.

The delay occurred due to a colossal increase in cyber-attacks directed at the CNE. Jimenez stated it was 30 million attacks per minute. She asked: who has the technical infrastructure and expertise (algorithms, etc.), equipment, energy sources and resources to unleash such volume of attacks per minute and sustain it for up to 20 uninterrupted hours?

Jimenez also reported that the Caracas stock exchange, the science and technology ministry and other ministries, the Central Bank, the Identification and Migration service, Inland Revenue, and other public services—critical for the functioning of the state—were targeted. No digital payments could be processed (deliveries, purchasing everyday items such as food and medicine, or payment of mobile phone bills) and no taxes could be collected because of the cyber-attacks.

The cyber-attacks also involved stealing public institutions’ data and publishing it, making public the names and full data of pensioners, and even the addresses of military officers with the slogan “Go for them!” The cyber-attacks were terrorist attacks. Jimenez explained that the source accounts had disguised IPs, but most, though not all, were from the United States.

The cyber-attacks intended not just to wreck the computerised electoral system’s transmission of election results—preventing the CNE from announcing any results at all—but also to disable as many other essential services as possible, aimed at creating generalized chaos and maximum pandemonium.

Post-election violence

The other key component of the U.S.-led coup attempt was the well-prepared wave of violence launched after their electoral defeat. Maria Corina Machado and her coalition unleashed thousands of paid thugs who went on the rampage on July 29, attacking anything representing public property with the most intense hatred directed at symbols of Chavismo: statues of Hugo Chavez, of Coromoto (an emblematic 17th century indigenous chieftain), and everything else within their reach. They also attacked Chavistas, leading to the death of 25 people.

Foreign minister Yvan Gil, informing the accredited diplomatic corps on Aug. 23, 2024, said there was clear evidence that Venezuela’s extreme right wing, “backed by the U.S. government … had hired the organized criminal gangs Tren de Aragua and Tren del Llano to initiate the coup d’etat” and deploy them “to generate post-electoral violence.” These gangs had engaged in the “purchase of votes in favour of the candidacy of Edmundo González Urrutia in areas with a strong territorial and political presence of Chavismo.”

The coup strategists expected that the wave of violence in many key cities, following the chaos and confusion caused by the generalized cyber-attacks, would force the authorities to deploy the national guard to many opposition-created points of violence as a diversion to facilitate the attack on the presidential palace. This last phase was conceived as a lethal blitzkrieg on the presidential palace. An armed mob attacked with a “bath of bullets” 60 international observers who were at the CNE headquarters in Caracas. President Maduro reported to the nation that on July 29 there had been two attempts to storm the Miraflores (presidential) palace by armed mobs.

Yvan Gil also explained that the coup model had been “designed by the CIA and the United States.” Up to Aug. 14, 2024, 30 members of such groups had been arrested with an arsenal that included “13 firearms (four of which are rifles), 302 cartridges, a grenade, two telescopic sights, eight radio transmitters, 10 flashlights, seven chargers, 35 Molotov cocktails, 12 cell phones, and six motorcycles.” These were professionals who, taking advantage of the chaos created, were entrusted with assaulting the presidential palace in preparation for the coup’s final phase: a “mass march on the palace,” proclaiming Edmundo Gonzalez president and probably requesting immediate international (military) assistance.

Maduro’s constitutional solution

The failure of the July 28 cyber-attack to destroy the CNE digital system (and that of almost every other public institution) delayed the polling stations’ transmission of results. The CNE’s first bulletin was issued nearly at midnight with 80% of the results which, in an irreversible trend, gave the victory to President Maduro (51.2% against Edmundo Gonzalez’s 44.2%). This result was confirmed with the CNE’s second bulletin with 97% of the results, with Maduro getting 51.95% against Gonzalez’s 43.18%.

Literally seconds after the CNE’s first bulletin, Maria Corina Machado appeared on television rejecting the results, alleging fraud and proclaiming Edmundo Gonzalez the winner. This claim was almost immediately echoed by world corporate media in an amazingly homogenous chorus. Machado and company claimed to have 40%, then 73%, then 80%, and even 100% of the voting records, which they followed by posting false results on an illegal website giving Gonzalez 67% to Maduro’s 30%.

Though the issuing of results by the CNE on July 28 had substantially disrupted a key component of the coup d’etat, the extreme right wing launched the planned wave of violence anyway. Confronted with such a lethal U.S.-led operation, on July 31 President Maduro filed an appeal before the Supreme Court to summon all candidates and representatives of all parties “to compare all the evidence and certify the results of July 28 through a technical appraisal.”

On the very same day, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, literally moments after Maduro’s appeal, stated that “given the overwhelming evidence … that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes,” he extended U.S. recognition to Gonzalez as the winner. However, a few days later, Blinken backtracked, withdrawing such recognition. This is unprecedented—the U.S. has never backtracked on such an important decision, especially considering its obsessive, decades-long fixation with Venezuela.

The Supreme Court investigation

The Supreme Court carried out an expert-technical investigation and analysis of the election as requested by President Maduro. It summoned all candidates and all 38 political parties participating in the July 28 election to submit all election information they had. Most candidates complied, except Edmundo Gonzalez. Worse, the PUD parties supporting Gonzalez as a candidate did not submit any election material or evidence, “arguing that they do not have documentation [i.e.] they do not have witness records of the polling stations.” They were the only parties not to submit anything; the other 33 did.

The CNE submitted all the election material in its possession—100% of everything. Furthermore, Edmundo Gonzalez failed to comply with Supreme Court summons three times. And the “combative” Maria Corina Machado, in comic fashion, pretended to have gone into hiding.

On Aug. 22, the Supreme Court ruled that bulletins issued by the CNE were supported by the voting records transmitted by each voting machine and were in full agreement with the data provided by the national aggregation centers. Therefore, “We certify, in an unobjectionable manner, the electoral material examined and validate the results issued by the CNE indicating that Nicolás Maduro Moros was elected.”

The opposition’s fraudulent website

The reason for the opposition’s non-compliance is clear: the crass election fraud perpetrated by Machado and others in the extreme right-wing coalition behind Edmundo Gonzalez’s candidacy. The election information they published on an illegal and fraudulent website includes 9,472 images of election records that represent 30% of the total election records (of over 30,000 polling places). Worse, 83% of them do not have metadata, which means they went through editing software—that is, they “are not faithful copy of the original.”

The striking feature of Machado-Gonzalez election victory claims is the level of manipulation of the false results published in the illegal website, whose domain was created on July 27—the day before the election. This leads to the pertinent question: If María Corina Machado and Edmundo González won the elections and have the records to prove it, then why would they post these fake records?

No wonder Blinken backtracked and not a single government in the world has recognized Edmundo Gonzalez as “president-elect.” Yet, from the White House to Southcom, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, right-wing governments in Latin America including Chile’s Boric, Organization of American States Secretary-General Luis Almagro, the Carter Centre, the U.N. Panel of Experts, and everybody else all the way down the world political food chain—including, of course, world corporate media—have questioned the validity of President Maduro’s re-election.

Some left intellectuals

This food chain includes leftist intellectuals and academics such as Alejandro Velasco, Gabriel Hetland and Mike Phipps. There are others, but these three, due to the similarity in their messaging, are perhaps an emblematic sample.

All three, with no evidence whatsoever, penned articles concluding that Gonzalez had won and Maduro had lost. They seem to have been persuaded by the “data” posted in the illegal website set up by Maria Corina Machado and company, which has been irrefutably debunked from every imaginable angle.

Velasco bluntly stated “On July 28, Maduro lost” in The Nation (Aug. 8, 2024). Hetland’s piece is titled “Fraud foretold?” (Sidecar, Aug. 21, 2024), in which he concludes that “Socialists, of any stripe, should not provide cover for a government that fixes elections and then clings to power by brutally punishing its poorest citizens when they protest.” Phipps’ piece (Labour Hub, Aug. 21, 2024) states that Venezuela’s government response to the crisis caused by U.S. sanctions was “repression and electoral fraud.”

Probably in their zeal to condemn the Bolivarian government, all three hastily depict the paid thugs unleashed by Machado and company as a working-class rebellion against the government.

All three questioned the cyber-attacks, depicting them as a ruse to justify fraud, arguing that the alleged hacking did not stop the CNE counting the votes between July 28 and Aug. 2. Yet the CNE informed in detail that the hacking had not stopped the counting but had drastically delayed the transmission of results. As late as Aug. 19, the science and technology minister reported that the CNE and 120 Venezuelan state sites were suffering cyberattacks, which have continued.

This was followed by a terrorist attack against the extreme right wing’s favorite target, the electric system, on Aug. 30, which affected 21 states. Then, on Sept. 2, the Libertador Simon Bolivar Terminal railway station suffered deliberate fire sabotage in its electrical room. There had been similar attacks in December 2021 which affected various parts of 19 states, and in March 2019 that affected 80% of the country. The cyber and terrorist attacks were and are real, no matter what these three may say.

All three depict President Maduro’s government as neoliberal or implementing neoliberal policies, claiming his administration represents a break with the revolutionary legacy of Hugo Chavez. All three blame the government as the key contributory cause of the misery millions of Venezuelans have endured. Although all three garnish their arguments by bemoaning U.S. sanctions and reproaching the opposition for repeatedly crying fraud in the past, they wittingly or unwittingly parrot imperialism and right-wing arguments of election fraud.

All three argue for a “left” or “democratic” alternative to Chavismo, and in Hetland’s case for stopping “covering” (i.e., stop supporting) President Maduro’s government. All the contentions of this group are either prejudiced distortions of reality or simply false. Nino Pagliccia, when referring to Velasco’s plea for an alternative to Chavismo, hit the nail on the head by correctly asserting that such a stance “is not an affirmation of the ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution, but a capitulation to the U.S. and its sponsored opposition in Venezuela.”

What has substantially contributed to confusing the whole issue, perhaps unintentionally adding credence to the extreme right wing, U.S. imperialism and world corporate media’s propaganda about a “July 28 CNE-rigged election” narrative, has been the equivocal views of Brazilian President Lula and Colombian President Petro who, without any solid evidence, seemed to have taken for granted there was fraud in the elections. On Aug. 15, President Maduro responded by saying the Venezuelan government will never intervene in the internal affairs of those two countries. He noted that in Brazil’s case, when Bolsonaro alleged fraud in the 2022 election Lula won and refused to accept the results, the matter was decided by the Brazilian Judiciary, “and no one from Venezuela or our government went public to intervene in this affair.”

Conclusion

To the question, was there election fraud in the July 28 presidential elections in Venezuela? The answer is a categorical YES, but perpetrated by Maria Corina Machado, U.S.-backed candidate Edmundo Gonzalez and operatives in the PUD (as investigations are revealing).

Clearly, the fake PUD website with false election results, which does not bear even the most basic scrutiny, was created on the premise of successfully disabling the CNE election system, so that the United States, its European Union accomplices, its Latin American allies and Venezuela’s extreme right wing could point to theirs as the only site with voting results. It was a central plank of the U.S.-led coup plot—a coup plot the U.S. could apply against any government anywhere.

President Maduro, confronted with a U.S.-led coup including a gigantic cyberattack aimed at disabling the CNE and as much as possible of state services, plus generalized violence throughout the nation, including two armed assaults against the presidential palace, could have opted for declaring a state of exception and restricting civil rights (Article 338 of the constitution). Instead, he chose to resort to the Supreme Court’s Electoral Section to resolve the electoral dispute (Article 297), whose result demolished the gigantic pack of lies and fake news around election fraud claims. That is, President Maduro resorted to the democratic mechanisms of the rule of law as stipulated in the constitution. The Supreme Court’s verdict contributes to the consolidation of democracy.

Conversely, the PUD, Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez are left politically naked and morally exposed (about which not much effort is required), which explains why the former went into “hiding” and the latter went AWOL.

More importantly, the Chavista movement’s maturity and discipline, steered by President Maduro, was able to successfully defeat the coup by political means instead of force, and strictly within the rule of law and constitutional principles stipulated in the Bolivarian Constitution. As more details of the U.S.-led coup plot come out, the strength and people’s support for the Bolivarian process gets sturdier. Conversely, the pathetic efforts by Maria Corina Machado and her U.S. mentors to stage a massively promoted “great international protest,” despite mobilizing an army of influencers and paid journalists on social media, dismally failed to even fill four blocks in Caracas (in other cities, it was worse).

Ongoing U.S. aggression

Just a month after President Maduro’s election victory and the subsequent defeat of the U.S.-led coup, there was a massive terrorist sabotage to the Venezuelan National Electric System plunging almost the whole country into darkness. It was a rearguard action aimed at disabling state institutions in the hope of resuscitating the defeated U.S.-led coup.

The United States, with the complicity of Dominican Republic authorities, hijacked a Venezuelan plane used primarily by Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez. The U.S. Department of Justice stated (Sept. 2) it had “seized an aircraft we allege was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolas Maduro and his cronies.”

Unlike some intellectuals in our sample, the U.S., its global accomplices and world corporate media do not ask what next for Chavismo. They don’t because they are part of a global U.S.-led machinery aimed at overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution to destroy all its achievements. The group of intellectuals discussed here ask this question as though they have the answer when they seem unable to even spot a U.S.-led coup as it unfolds before our eyes.

However, President Maduro has answered that question by announcing mega-elections in 2025, which will elect 23 governors, 355 mayors, 23 legislative councils and 355 municipal councils. The only requirement to participate is to comply with Venezuela’s laws.

From the previous 31 electoral processes (and the July 28 presidential election), we know the 2025 elections will be fair, but they are unlikely to be free from U.S. interference and sanctions. The intellectuals discussed here, though recognizing the devastating consequences of U.S. sanctions in the cited articles, seem to accept them as a fact of life (“The prospects of the U.S. lifting sanctions appears remote,” Hetland) and noticeably fail to demand their lifting.

Perhaps for the coming 2025 elections these writers may craft well-written pieces to demand the U.S. does not interfere. We in the solidarity movement will continue to call for the immediate and unconditional lifting of all U.S. illegal sanctions and for a stop to U.S. criminal interference in Venezuela’s internal affairs. The president of Venezuela is elected by the people of Venezuela, not hand-picked by the U.S. State Department.

U.S. Hands off Venezuela!

Francisco Dominguez, a former refugee from Chile in Britain, is head of the Center for Brazilian and Latin American Studies at Middlesex University, London. He is also secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign in Britain.

The above article was originally published by the Orinoco Tribune.