Venezuela: A report on a new victory

Workers World is publishing, unmodified, several statements from anti-imperialist media to show the breadth of support for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and opposition to the lies of the U.S. government and the corporate media. Author Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein is a Venezuelan consultant and international analyst. Translation: John Catalinotto.

July 31, 2024. The presidential election in Venezuela is over. There were long days of extreme tension in which the Venezuelan people were subjected to strong psychological pressure campaigns accompanied by enormous financial and media support to the opposition. This included an act of digital terrorism directed against the National Electoral Council (CNE), which prevented the delivery of definitive results within the stipulated period and generated nervousness in the population that was waiting for the results.

Today, July 31, in spite of what the transnational media transmits showing a country on fire with a president on the run and a fractured armed forces, the country is experiencing a quite extended calm. The desperation of the international right wing and the rogue media is shown by their resorting to images that are false or shown out of context. They even use images from other times and in other countries. People who could be considered decent and who have occupied high positions in their countries have resorted to lies in an impudent and shameless way in order to show a false and fabricated version of the events.

Right after the same Sunday night as the vote, in the early hours of Monday morning, July 29, President Nicolás Maduro had already called for building a broad political alliance to widen the social support base of Chavismo. Likewise, he urged the country’s businessmen and businesswomen to forge an alliance between the public and private sectors, in order to advance toward a management model that was “revolutionary, socialist and with nationalist ethics.”

It cannot be otherwise when the continuity in the decrease of the historic vote of Chavismo has been confirmed in the three elections that Maduro has won (2013, 2018 and 2024). I believe that the people have given the president a new opportunity. However, this could be the last opportunity if basic problems that afflict the population, especially in the most disadvantaged sectors, are not solved.

In his new term, the president will have to fight administrative inefficiency and corruption and solve three problems that maintain a climate of discontent among the people: low salaries, lack of public services (electricity, water, gas, telephones and health among the most problematic) in some regions of the country and insufficient fuel supply for the population.

But Maduro has won six years to continue with the economic and social transformation project initiated by Comandante Hugo Chávez. It was known beforehand that the opposition would refuse to recognize the results. This has always been the case in the previous 28 elections won by Chavism out of the 30 held in the last 25 years.

It has been part of a strategy of the United States and Europe to declare the elections illegal and on that basis, maintain sanctions and continue financing the opposition on the understanding that the real “government” is one of the opponents.

Interference of the regional ultraright

This opposition plan included that hours before the CNE gave the final result, an interference operation led by right-wing governments and former presidents of Argentina, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Uruguay -– that is to say of the regional ultraright wing – took place.

Important governments of the region such as Mexico, Brazil, Cuba, Honduras, Colombia, Bolivia, Nicaragua and the English-speaking Caribbean nations did not participate in this operation.

Nevertheless, the declaration of around 10 countries led by the United States was amplified by the international media, putting the majority of the countries of the region in the background. And that same media, acting unilaterally, has bombarded the information spectrum for three days, even managing to confuse friendly countries and personalities.

The night of the elections, in the midst of the delay caused by the interruption of the electronic data transmission process, Chavista grassroots leaders stated that they were going to defend the process by all means at their disposal. This increased the levels of tension.

Some leaders of the opposition had summoned a sector of that opposition to unleash violence. Were that to happen, it was presumed that Chavismo would respond, producing a situation with unforeseeable consequences. But Chavista leaders made it clear that they would defend the vote, and if necessary, they would also take to the streets to fight.

It was noteworthy that an important Chavista social leader said that it was not a matter of blindly supporting the government, but that they were defending the strategic mission of expanding communal power and that they were defending the government, because they had assumed it would allow them to continue accumulating forces to promote the commune.

In Maduro’s next presidential term, there will be no substantial changes in foreign policy. The changes will be mainly in domestic policy. Maduro will be forced to respond to the popular sectors that gave him their support in spite of the difficult situation of the country.

In the situation created, it is evident that the vote of support to Maduro had a high political and ideological content in a sector that was discontented and that was won back by the extraordinary and brilliant electoral campaign of Chavismo, which without being good in terms of communication, was good in terms of organization and mobilization.

In his eagerness to gain governability and stability, Maduro was forced to make concessions to the right wing and the business sector. With a lucid management, he managed to stabilize the macroeconomic figures, which favored the middle and upper sectors of the population, and to a lesser extent, the popular sectors. During the campaign, Maduro was able to grasp the existence of uneasiness among the poorest citizens who, in spite of this, gave him their vote.

But now Maduro will have to respond to this popular support without breaking with the commitments he made with certain sectors of the opposition and with business owners. The search for that balance will be the essence of his future success.

Migratory, energetic and diplomatic challenges

On the other hand, a determining factor will be the attitude of the United States with respect to Venezuela. There are three fundamental issues: migration, energy and relations with China and Russia. The first two are campaign issues in the United States. It is very likely that there will be rapprochements, because Venezuela is today an enormous source of undocumented migrants.

On the second issue, the crisis in West Asia and the sanctions against Russia have deteriorated the world energy market, and it may be in the interest of the United States to increase its demand in Venezuela, for which it will necessarily have to negotiate with Maduro. It should be remembered that the immigration issue is the most important issue in the electoral debate in the United States.

The last aspect, that of relations with China and Russia, will remain unchanged with respect to Venezuela, which aspires to join the BRICS and increase its links with China and Russia and with the other countries of that association in order to obtain support for the solution of the problems presented by U.S. and European sanctions. But, in any case, it will depend more on China and Russia than on Venezuela. Venezuela, for its part, could make important contributions to this grouping, which will undoubtedly grow in the future.

After last Sunday’s electoral event took place with total calm and tranquility, as expected, after the official results were announced, the opposition refused to recognize them, thus unleashing a preconceived plan of national and international actions against Venezuela.

This plan began to develop in the days prior to the elections when the global ultraright tried to enter the country by force without having been invited by the electoral body. It was a clear provocation. On Sunday afternoon, when people were still voting, Argentina’s Foreign Minister Diana Mondino announced that González had won with a 37% margin.

At the same time, seven Latin American countries (including Argentina) issued a statement saying that there had been fraud and announcing that they would not recognize Nicolás Maduro. This was accompanied by an intense offensive in social networks with the participation of former presidents and leaders of the Latin American ultraright wing calling for non-recognition of the election results.

On Monday, July 29, all this generated the conditions for the development of violent acts whose modus operandi evidenced a clear synchronization and planning. Today we have information that thousands of people throughout the country participated in these marches and acts of violence. Almost a thousand terrorists were arrested for these incidents and — as is usual among paid people who have no ethics or political incentive whatsoever — they have begun to speak out.

It has been learned that 80% of them have criminal records, a good part of them have recently returned from abroad where they received military training. Likewise, 90% were in an advanced state of drug addiction and were illegally carrying weapons. They also stated that they received $150 per day to generate chaos. At this hour, 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 31, the situation in Caracas is calm while the streets are slowly returning to normal.

Yesterday morning, the armed forces, represented by all, absolutely all its high command, expressed full support to the government and loyalty to President Maduro, while strongly rejecting the violent actions, saying they would be promptly repressed as they violate the Constitution and the institutional framework, generate anxiety and threaten the peace so longed for and long sought by Venezuelans.

A cyberattack

Likewise, as the day went by, the characteristics of the cyberattack suffered by the National Electoral Council on Sunday became known, preventing it from providing timely information on the results. This action pursued — precisely — the objective of serving as a detonator to start an escalation of violence intended to incorporate sectors of the armed forces and provoke a change of government by force.

The cyberattack was massive and multiple. Never before had Venezuela suffered an onslaught of such dimensions, which has not yet ceased. Hundreds of attacks against the web page of the National Electoral Council continue at this moment, making the transmission of data impossible.

An attempt was also made to cause an electrical blackout leading to chaos so that there would be no electoral results, thus creating a pretext to justify the violence. All this forced the government to activate the Council of State to hold a joint meeting with the National Security Council to evaluate the situation and take actions.

According to Victor Theoktisto, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science and who was, between June and July 2021, external auditor of the National Electoral Council (CNE) for the supervision and study of the Election System in the area of system software, digital security, cryptography and secure data transmission, the attack was a DOS (Denial of Service) carried out from the Republic of North Macedonia. The attack consisted of saturating the networks with a huge amount of spurious traffic to prevent the transmission of information.

In an interview for the Russian portal Sputnik, posted on July 30, the technician reported: “Although it is impossible to alter the content of what was being transmitted, it was possible to reduce the connections in such a way that they were rarely completed successfully, slowing down the whole totalization process.

“It was a situation foreseen by the intelligence agencies with the help of the operators and was eventually solved,” Theoktisto said, “but it caused a notable delay. It also consisted [and continues] in a permanent attack on the CNE website, on the state media and in general on the public administration services, as a global and multifactorial attack on the Venezuelan state.”

The international campaign of disinformation regarding what happened in the Venezuelan elections has been characterized by a high level of organization, aimed at generating uncertainty and accusations against the Venezuelan electoral institution. The accusations are based on the unusual argument that María Machado has 100% of the minutes in her possession, which is elementary and undeniable, because all the political parties and representatives of the candidates in each polling station have them. So does Chavismo. The issue, however, is to show the evidence, not to show who makes more noise.

According to what Theoktisto explained, when the polling stations are closed and the votes are totaled, the same (in the form of tally sheets) are transmitted through an automated and encrypted mechanism all the way through “technological devices that are impossible to alter, manipulate or eliminate” until they reach the National Totalization Center of the National Electoral Council.

The computer expert commented that the machine then generates the same scrutiny report printed on a paper similar to those of the points of sale where the polling station data, day, time and several security codes are indicated (to avoid being replaced by false copies and which are unique for each table), in addition, the votes for each candidate, by political organization, total votes [and] null votes. …

He added that this information is given “to all the duly accredited witnesses of the political parties. Likewise, 50% of the polling stations are randomly audited in order to ratify the conformity between the voting results that appear in the printed Vote Counts Record and the vote receipts deposited in the corresponding ballot box.”

The expert concludes by saying that “all the political organizations that accredited their witnesses have at this moment, printed, all the tally sheets in each and every one of the more than 30,000 polling stations.”

The totalization allows awarding victory and declaring which candidate has the majority of votes. This totalization must be done within 48-72 hours after the event. The NEC has 30 days to publish the results in the Electoral Gazette.

But in this case the electoral body has denounced the hacking to which it was subjected in an attempt to impede and slow down the totalization of data. It is worth mentioning that the candidates have 15 days by law to challenge the results before the competent body.

Transparency of the electoral process

In order to eliminate any doubt about the transparency of the electoral process that certified the victory of Nicolás Maduro, the latter filed a writ of appeal before the Electoral Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) today, Wednesday, July 31. The procedure was carried out in order to request the Electoral Chamber of the TSJ “to settle this attack against the electoral process and coup d’état using the elections and to clarify all these attacks. … ”

To this effect, Maduro requested the TSJ to summon all the candidates, the representatives of all the parties and to collate all the elements of proof and certify, through a technical expertise, the results of July 28, for which he informed the highest court of the state that his alliance, the Great Patriotic Pole (GPP) and his organization, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) will present before public opinion 100% of the minutes that endorse its electoral victory, making it known that both political structures are willing to show all the minutes.

Maduro urged the other candidates to comply with the same procedure in order to clear doubts on the transparency of the elections and the veracity of the results. In this sense, and in order to clear any doubts on the matter, Maduro stated that he, as political chief, will submit himself to the interrogation of the electoral chamber of the highest court of the country.

On the same Wednesday afternoon, with the evidence in hand, President Maduro appeared before the foreign press to disclose all the information gathered with which the new dossier of the terrorist plan against Venezuela can be easily configured. This time the plan was based on the declaration of a fraud that was born and developed in the laboratories of psychological warfare of the United States. With the financing of the global ultraright, the Colombian drug trafficking groups and the U.S. intelligence agencies, the plan was intended to spread chaos and turn Venezuela into an easy prey of their imperial voracity.