Condemnation of the 2024 Venezuelan Election Suggests Hope for International Institutions

Julia Nguyen is a first-year in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University.

On Friday, January 10, 2025, Nicolás Maduro was sworn in for his third term as president of Venezuela. This comes after millions of Venezuelans voted against Maduro in hopes of change. The United States and other countries recognize Maduro’s opponent Edmundo González Urrutia as the true winner of the election.¹ People claim that the election was stolen for four reasons: 1) Maduro blocked election monitors from several Latin American countries. 2) The Venezuelan government launched a repression campaign against opponents of Maduro, most notably María Corina Machado, who originally ran against him before the government prohibited her. 3) Machado’s data suggests that González won by a landslide. 4) The Venezuelan government’s refusal to release poll data violates international electoral standards. The idea of a stolen election in Venezuela directly contradicts its previous promise to hold fair elections. On October 17, 2023, in Barbados, the Venezuelan government and its political opposition agreed to make electoral guarantees for the 2024 presidential election. The United States, the European Union (“EU”), the United Kingdom, and Canada issued a joint statement in support of the Barbados agreement. To verify Venezuela’s commitment to fairness, Maduro invited officials from the United Nations (“UN”), the United States, the EU, and several Latin American countries to monitor the election.²

The overarching purpose of election monitors is to maintain the Liberal International Order (“LIO”)—a set of international institutions with overlapping ideological goals, including democracy. Election monitoring aims to uphold the LIO’s ideal of democracy by ensuring fair elections and building trust in the government. How it works is that independent monitors from different countries oversee elections in the host country to make sure that they’re conducted fairly.³ Venezuela affirmed its commitment to both international law and institutions through: 1) signing the Barbados agreement, thereby making a binding promise to hold free and fair elections and 2) allowing international observers to monitor their elections. Venezuela’s failure to uphold international electoral standards, despite its written agreement in Barbados and the presence of election monitors from the UN Panel of Electoral Experts and the Carter Center, raises the question of how strong international law and institutions truly are. I contend that the Venezuelan elections do not undermine international institutions because the UN Panel’s and Carter Center’s findings against Maduro demonstrate the strength of election monitoring. 

One reason people claim that the Venezuelan election violates the LIO is that Maduro’s blocking of Latin American election monitors is undemocratic. For example, Panama claimed that authorities prevented a flight carrying Latin American leaders from leaving the airport, and Colombian officials and Spanish Members of Parliament (“MPs”) reported that they were denied entry at the Caracas airport. In addition to blocking Latin American monitors, Maduro withdrew his invitations to EU officials and former Argentine president Alberto Fernandez.⁴ Maduro’s obstruction of election monitors breaks his previous pattern of citing the number of monitors to prove that his elections were fair.⁵ His out-of-character refusal to let them in suggests that he was trying to keep the election opaque, which undermines the credibility of his election. What complicates matters, though, is that he allowed observers from the UN Panel of Electoral Experts and the U.S.-based Carter Center to come in.⁶ He likely made this decision to appease the United States since the Biden Administration said they would relax sanctions in exchange for Maduro holding free elections.⁷ 

Alongside Maduro’s blocking of certain election monitors, the main reason that people claim the election was stolen is that Maduro withheld data proving that González had won the election. Machado released data representing more than 81% of polling stations around Venezuela that showed that González won by 67% while Maduro only received 30% of votes.⁸ However, the Venezuelan government refused to release disaggregated election results by polling station, which the Carter Center considers a “serious breach of electoral principles.”⁹ Maduro defended his decision saying that the Venezuelan Supreme Court should decide whether the counts should be published, but there are two legal issues with this justification: 1) Letting the Supreme Court make this decision is not the usual custom. 2) The Supreme Court is aligned with Maduro.¹⁰

The Carter Center’s and the UN Panel of Electoral Experts’s findings suggest that Maduro violated international electoral standards. In addition to Maduro’s refusal to release election data, the Carter Center found that the Venezuelan government repressed the political opposition, created suboptimal voting conditions, and abused the media and governmental resources to give Maduro an advantage. For example, several opposition parties had their registrations changed to leaders in favor of the ruling party, and the registration of main opposition candidates was subject to arbitrary decisions by the National Electoral Council (CNE). A large proportion of the migrant population was disenfranchised due to short voting deadlines, minimal public information, and a lack of voting registration sites. Lastly, Maduro’s campaign abused administrative resources, like governmental vehicles, and harassed or indicted people who tried to assist the opposition’s campaign, all while providing overwhelmingly positive press for Maduro.¹¹ In a statement from the U.S. Mission to the UN, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield confirmed the Carter Center’s findings, stating that the CNE’s refusal to publish official results is evidence of Maduro’s attempt to conceal facts. Thomas-Greenfield also asserts that more than 12 million Venezuelans voted, with the majority supporting González.¹² 

While the Venezuelan election was a violation of the Barbados agreement, the Carter Center’s and UN Panel’s ability to condemn Venezuela’s lack of compliance with the LIO shows the strength of international institutions. On one hand, Venezuela’s failure to honor its finalized agreement in Barbados threatens international law: Venezuela violated an international agreement that was supposed to have binding power. This could suggest the weakness of international law in compelling states to follow the LIO. On the other hand, the effectiveness of election monitors who were able to enter Venezuela renews the strength of international institutions. The purpose of election monitors at its core is to verify compliance with international electoral standards. According to the UN Women Watch, they generally “have no power to interfere in the election process, but may only observe, assess, and report.”¹³ The fact that both the Carter Center and UN Panel could observe the Venezuelan election and condemn Venezuela’s non-compliance with international standards shows the ability of election monitors to name and shame, which is precisely their purpose. 

The success of the Carter Center and UN Panel in publicly condemning Venezuela’s violation of international electoral standards redeems international institutions. While Venezuela’s violation of international law through its breach of the Barbados agreement is concerning, the election monitors accomplished everything they could under the constraints of an international institution. International institutions were not designed to have binding power; they were meant to nudge states toward complying with the LIO. Election monitors weren’t supposed to stop the execution of an unfair election; they were designed to observe and report, which is exactly what the Carter Center and UN Panel did. The Carter Center’s and UN Panel’s success in naming and shaming the Venezuelan elections shows that the international order is not doomed but rather, international institutions demonstrate positive progress toward carrying out their fundamental purpose.
The redemption of international institutions in the face of a violated international agreement suggests that norms are powerful. On the Good Authority podcast, Martha Finnemore asserts that many norms exert a lot of power: for example, norms of how to behave on the internet are considered universal. She states that much of political science works with non-legally binding agreements, including the LIO, that establish global standards of behavior. Norms become institutionalized when they become second nature to us: we don’t actively think about them, but we recognize when they’re violated.¹⁴ The denunciation of Venezuela’s elections exemplifies this concept because the norm of free and fair elections has been ingrained in international standards, and international institutions were quick to speak out when they realized that Venezuela violated these norms. The coinciding success of international institutions with the breach of written international law suggests that norms may be more powerful than laws in the global scheme.

1.  Julie Turkewitz & Genevieve Glatsky, Venezuela’s Autocrat, Accused of Stealing Election, Seizes Third Term, THE NEW YORK TIMES (January 10, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/10/world/americas/nicolas-maduro-venezuela-president.html. ↩︎
2. Deisy Buitrago, Vivian Sequera & Matt Spetalnick, Venezuela, opposition sign election deal; US weighs sanctions relief, REUTERS (October 17, 2023), https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-opposition-sign-election-deal-paving-way-us-sanctions-relief-2023-10-17/.  
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3. Erik Voeten, “Lecture 3: Institutions and Cooperation under Anarchy,” International Relations, September 4, 2024.
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4. Agence France-Presse, Concern grows as Venezuela blocks election observers, VOA NEWS (July 27, 2024), https://www.voanews.com/a/concern-grows-as-venezuela-blocks-election-observers/7715124.html. ↩︎
5. Frances Robles, Venezuelan Election Denounced by International Monitoring Group, THE NEW YORK TIMES  (July 31, 2024), https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/world/americas/venezuela-election-carter-center-democracy.html. ↩︎
6. France-Presse, supra. ↩︎
7.  Id. ↩︎
8.  Robles, supra. ↩︎
9. The Carter Center, Carter Center Statement on Venezuela Election, THE CARTER CENTER (July 30, 2024), https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2024/venezuela-073024.html. ↩︎
10. Robles, supra. ↩︎
11.  The Carter Center, supra. ↩︎
12.  United States Mission to the United Nations Office of Press and Public Diplomacy, Statement by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on UN Panel of Experts’ Interim Report on Venezuelan Presidential Elections, UNITED STATES MISSION TO THE UNITED NATIONS (August 14, 2024), https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-by-ambassador-linda-thomas-greenfield-on-un-panel-of-experts-interim-report-on-venezuelan-presidential-elections/. ↩︎
13. United Nations, Women & Elections: Guide to promoting the participation of women in elections, 75. ↩︎
14. Erik Voeten & Martha Finnemore, The importance of norms in international affairs: A conversation with Martha Finnemore, GOOD AUTHORITY (August 6, 2024), https://goodauthority.org/news/norms-rules-international-relations-martha-finnemore-ai-cybersecurity/. ↩︎