MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan elections impact felt all across the Americas

Macri underlined all eyes were on Lula now to see how the largest country in the region responded to what he claimed was electoral fraud

Sunday's elections in Venezuela are rapidly shedding their consequences in other parts of the Americas as reactions from leaders everywhere shape up the geopolitical landscape for the months to come.

Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) said that he hoped that the leftwing Brazilian Government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would stand by the Venezuelan people after Sunday's elections which Nicolás Maduro claimed to have won with 51.2% of the vote according to the National Electoral Council (CNE).

“I hope that President Lula, whom I consider a democrat, regardless of our ideological differences, will not remain silent,” Macri wrote on X. “What is happening in Venezuela is an attack against democracy and it is an enormous risk that this dictatorship will last in our region. Venezuelans and many leaders of Latin America and the world are waiting for your word in this difficult moment.”

“What happened today in Venezuela was a disgrace. Dictator Nicolás Maduro used military force for cheating after losing to Edmundo González. I am calling on Dictator Maduro to resign! We must have voter ID and Paper ballots or the same will happen here!,” warned former US President Donald Trump, who is campaigning to return to the White House.

Joining Presidents Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, Gabriel Boric Font of Chile, and Argentina's Javier Milei among others who already said they would not acknowledge Maduro's victory, Uruguay's head of state Luis Lacalle Pou stressed: “Not like that! It was an open secret. They were going to 'win' regardless of the actual results.”

“The process up to the day of the election and the scrutiny was clearly flawed. A triumph cannot be recognized if there is no confidence in the manner and mechanisms used to reach it,” he added.

Senator and former Defense Minister Javier García pledged to “gather the necessary signatures to call for an extraordinary, serious, and urgent” Senate session in Montevideo “to pronounce ourselves on the fraud in Venezuela.”

Those who did congratulate Maduro were Cuban President President Miguel Díaz-Canel and his predecessor Raúl Castro.

“I spoke with brother Nicolás Maduro to convey warm congratulations on behalf of the Cuban Party, Government, and people for the historic electoral triumph achieved, after an impressive demonstration by the Venezuelan people,” wrote Díaz-Canel on social media.

“Today the dignity and courage of the Venezuelan people triumphed over pressures and manipulations. I convey to brother President Maduro, our warm congratulations for this historic victory and Cuba's commitment to stand by the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution,” he also noted.

Maduro's victory “is that of the Bolivarian and Chavista people, they defeated the pro-imperialist opposition unequivocally. Thus, they also defeated the regional right-wing, the interferenceist and the Monroist right-wing. The people spoke and the Revolution won,” he underlined.

“The triumph achieved by the Venezuelan people constitutes a convincing demonstration of the Civic-Military Union of the Bolivarian and Chavista people that has resisted the negative effects of the unjust unilateral coercive measures imposed by the Government of the United States, the violent acts and interference in the internal affairs of Venezuela,” Castro said.

The Governments of Paraguay, Argentina, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Uruguay, issued a communiqué demanding a complete review of the electoral results in Venezuela, requesting the presence of independent observers.

In response, Caracas expelled these countries' ambassadors from Venezuelan territory.