If the Venezuelan strongman remains in power, his regime will become an even larger national-security threat to the U.S. Urgent measures are needed.
If the Venezuelan strongman remains in power, his regime will become an even larger national-security threat to the U.S. Urgent measures are needed.
O n Sunday, Venezuelans went to the polling stations despite living under an authoritarian regime that denies them free and fair elections. Millions of them voted for change, expressing their exhaustion with repression and the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Predictably, President Nicolás Maduro, through the National Electoral Council (CNE) he controls, declared himself the winner with 51 percent of the vote.
The CNE’s assertion that Maduro won the vote is a fabrication. Edison Research exit polls aligned with the results published by the opposition, which claimed that over 70 percent of Venezuelans voted for its candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia. Moreover, the opposition, having anticipated electoral fraud, meticulously verified the results using an open-source modeling protocol, demonstrating that González Urrutia had indeed secured over 70 percent of the vote. Consequently, numerous governments have condemned the election as rigged, demanding Maduro provide evidence of his alleged victory.
Massive protests against Maduro’s fraud have erupted nationwide. Thousands have taken to the streets, and, in a symbolic act of defiance, toppled several statues of former president Hugo Chávez. Clashes with security forces and other armed groups had led to hundreds of arrests and more than eleven deaths as of Thursday morning, according to the watchdog group Foro Penal. Throughout this turmoil, Venezuela’s military has remained steadfastly loyal to Maduro, supporting his calls for the arrest of key opposition leaders.
Internationally, the regime has attempted to persuade leftist allies like Colombia and Brazil to accept Maduro as the election’s winner. But these countries have withheld recognition of the results, calling for greater transparency. Neighboring countries, hosting millions of Venezuelan refugees, fear a new wave of Venezuelan migrants if Maduro solidifies his power.
The night of the election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that U.S. officials “have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.” On Thursday, the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Brian Nichols, declared that the opposition had indeed won the election against Maduro.
The Carter Center, one of the few monitoring entities invited to observe the vote, condemned the electoral commission’s lack of transparency:
Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election did not meet international standards of electoral integrity and cannot be considered democratic.
The Carter Center cannot verify or corroborate the results of the election declared by the National Electoral Council (CNE), and the electoral authority’s failure to announce disaggregated results by polling station constitutes a serious breach of electoral principles.
Venezuela’s electoral process did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages and violated numerous provisions of its own national laws. The election took place in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organizations, and the media. Throughout the electoral process, the CNE demonstrated a clear bias in favor of the incumbent.
With most of the international community either questioning the CNE’s results or outright recognizing González Urrutia as the winner of the election, opportunities and risks arise. On the negative front, if Maduro stays in power, he is likely to be isolated. In recent years, Maduro has attempted to normalize relations with the United States. But the aftermath of the election has made clear that integration into the international community is now an impossibility for his regime.
As a result, if the regime survives, we can expect him to intensify his alignment with enemies of the United States like China, Russia, and Iran. Together, they would find in Venezuela a hub in the Americas to continue undermining the security and leadership of the United States.
America’s enemies would continue building up an economic ecosystem in Venezuela independent of the U.S.-led financial and commercial markets. This would make U.S. sanctions ineffective as these regimes ensure Venezuela’s access to payment methods, lines of credit, energy sources, and preferential markets, thereby enhancing the economic resilience and potential of all the countries involved.
Venezuela and Iran have already signed numerous cooperation agreements in areas including petrochemicals, transport, and mining. In June 2023, Tehran and Caracas signed 25 bilateral economic agreements worth $3 billion per year. Iran’s then-president Ebrahim Raisi said at the time that the goal was to eventually increase the two countries’ trade volume to $20 billion annually.
These regimes would also continue increasing their military presence in Venezuela. Maduro has already ratified agreements with Russia “for the defense of peace, of sovereignty, the defense of territorial integrity.” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has also become “increasingly intertwined in Venezuela’s security and intelligence apparatus” and has been fundamental in “assisting Venezuela’s National Guard to keep the opposition at bay.”
All of this cooperation with other rogue regimes would make Venezuela even more dangerous to its neighbors. The country is already heavily involved in drug-dealing, international money-laundering, and mass migration. In fact, recent surveys estimate that over 40 percent of Venezuelans would leave the nation if Maduro is elected to another six-year term. This would severely compromise America’s efforts to stop illegal migrants from crossing the U.S. border.
This means that the United States should radically increase its efforts to achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela. If Venezuela becomes free and democratic once again, the country would immediately become a friend of the interests of the United States. It would provide unexplored export opportunities for American firms. It would help the U.S. effort to stop illegal migration. It would stop its cooperation with Iran, China, and Russia. And it would provide opportunities for U.S. energy companies interested in producing oil and natural gas as well as extracting gold and uranium.
An effective U.S. response should diverge from the Biden administration’s current course. The Biden White House’s strategy on Venezuela has been erratic and ultimately ineffective. Instead of lifting sanctions in exchange for empty promises, the U.S. should use its vast instruments and human capital to develop an overarching and effective strategy in Venezuela.
This strategy should include the timely use of economic-pressure mechanisms. It should focus on protecting American residents (including activists in exile and U.S. policy-makers) from transnational forms of repression. It should include innovative forms of political support that leverage America’s leading technologists and innovators. And it should consider insights from private companies that deal with politically volatile countries.
Only by thinking outside the box and defining a clear strategy for democracy promotion in Venezuela will America be able to support the Venezuelan people in their quest for freedom. The success of that quest, when it comes, will be a positive not only from a moral point of view but also from a national-security perspective.