How to legitimize a lie

According to a recent report by Transparencia Electoral, of the supposedly 800 electoral observers or international missions that participated in the recent Venezuelan electoral process, only the identities of 100 people could be confirmed, and even less than that delivered on their pledge of impartiality. Of this list, the vast majority are members of communist or socialist parties from different countries, or social activists with little experience in electoral matters and Bolivarian discourse. Many of the observers were even in Caracas to participate in a pre-election meeting on “II World Social Alternative: the organization of the peoples is a factor for self-determination”[LM1] [HA2], organized by the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP). Held just days before the elections, the meeting included discussion about anti-capitalist struggles with one speaker expressing support for the re-election of Nicolás Maduro.

In the Organization of American States’ (OAS) Manual for OAS Electoral Observation Missions, an international election observation is “a process whereby an organized group of individuals from outside the host country systematically carries out a series of complex actions and activities to observe an electoral process in a direct, complete, and precise manner.” The purpose of the international observation is that many impartial, neutral and independent observers can assess the way the electoral process took place and evaluate the fairness of the system.

However, it is becoming increasingly common for supposed “election experts,” and even those who don’t bother disguising their membership in political groups and parties, to be invited by authoritarian regimes to legitimize a pre-determined and fraudulent election process. This type of abominable, faux democracy is the case in places like Russia, but recent events have exposed this phenomenon happening in our own hemisphere, in Venezuela.

During the 2024 elections, the Venezuelan Electoral Power revoked the observation invitation that was previously extended to the electoral mission of the European Union, but sustained invitations to related entities such as the Community of Caribbean States (CELAC), -whose first summit was presided by Hugo Chávez- the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the Inter-American Union of Electoral Organizations (Uniorec), – created in Caracas in 1991 – the Panel of Experts of the United Nations, the African Union, the Carter Center, and the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America – a full member of CLACSO, an organization dedicated to defending communist dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela in order to confront imperialism.

Thus, despite the hundreds of “impartial” observers that were present in Venezuela to oversee the electoral process, only reports from the Carter Center and the UN can be taken seriously. Both reports have been conclusive: there was fraud in the electoral process, and the opposition won the elections.

The aforementioned study by Transparencia Electoral only confirms that Maduro’s regime has employed a strategy much like former Nazi Chancellor Joseph Goebbels who said “lie, lie and something will remain.” Maduro will continue to hide behind the military power of his regime and hold out for the people and the opposition to tire of calling for the democratic results to be honored, thus retaining his control over the suffering nation.

Fortunately, the truth of the Venezuelan electoral fraud is becoming increasingly clear to democratic countries around the world, with the opposition’s tireless work to expose Maduro’s lies, and that momentum must not cease. Maduro must be denounced and the people must continue to demand that the true triumph of the opposition in Venezuela be recognized.

Hernán Alberro is the Latin America Program Manager at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.

Photo: Consejo Nacional Electoral Cne Fachada Posterior under CC BY 3.0.