Where Venezuela Goes From Here ? (요약본)

The day after Venezuela’s July 28 presidential election, the National Electoral Council said that it could not provide the world with the actual results of the vote. Yet somehow it “irrevocably” declared the autocratic Nicolás Maduro as the winner over opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.

The opposition was ready.

It had gathered 73.2% of the receipts printed by Venezuela’s electronic voting machines and published them on a website launched a day after the vote.

By its calculations, González won with a stunning two-thirds majority.

Venezuela’s democracy has long been in crisis.

What began as a broadly popular political movement under the socialist President Hugo Chávez in 1999 gradually slid into autocracy.

His expropriation schemes and a 2014 oil price slump all but destroyed the petrostate’s economy and Maduro, who took office in 2013, shifted from redistribution to repression.

The opposition was under no illusions that this election would be free or fair.

It ran a campaign that expressed trust that the ballot box would vindicate it — while planning for the worst.

Maduro's government has doubled down on the baseless claim that Venezuelan democracy is under siege by foreign interventionists and cracked down on protests. 

The opposition's plan is producing results.

 The U.S. has come out in support of González, and The E.U. doesn't recognize Maduro’s win.

Even friendly Latin American governments are pressuring him to set the record straight.

Venezuela has powerful allies but Maduro looks increasingly alone. The upshot in Venezuela remains uncertain. But the crucial days that followed the election were a long time in the making. 

Where Venezuela Goes From Here