Senate Republicans and Democrats are taking opposing tacts in how they’re approaching Venezuela, two days after a disputed election where President Nicolás Maduro declared himself the victor: Democrats, following the White House, are proceeding cautiously; Republicans, condemning the White House, are demanding immediate action.
The administration should “stand up for democracy, stand up against the obvious and indisputable election fraud,” Sen. Ted Cruz told NOTUS, pointing to previous Venezuelan elections held under Maduro’s government that are widely considered to be fraudulent. “The president of the United States should clearly and unequivocally call out Maduro as an illegitimate leader, as a dictator that’s subverting democracy. The president should recognize the opposition leader as the duly elected leader of Venezuela.”
Sen. Marco Rubio blamed the Biden administration for the results, arguing the deals Biden officials reached with the Maduro regime — which resulted in the U.S. temporarily lifting economic sanctions and extraditing regime allies in exchange for free and fair elections — instead encouraged Maduro to commit electoral fraud.
“We should treat these guys for what they are: They’re enemies of the United States, they always have been,” Rubio said. The Biden administration, he added, “cut this deal with them that they were never going to keep. … Total fiasco.”
The Maduro-controlled Venezuelan National Electoral Council said Maduro won the election with 51% of the vote, and the opposition candidate Edmundo González received 44%. Meanwhile, opposition leader María Corina Machado — who was barred from running by the regime — said her allies had acquired tallies directly from polling stations that show the council’s numbers are fake and González overwhelmingly beat Maduro.
The White House National Security Council said on Tuesday that the U.S. is “closely monitoring” the election outcome and demanded that Venezuelan electoral authorities release full and detailed tallies — which the Venezuelan government is required to do under the country’s constitution — because there are “clear signs that the election results … did not reflect the will of the Venezuelan people as it was expressed at the ballot box.” However, the NSC did not go as far as to fully denounce the outcome.
The administration has been cautiously monitoring the situation. NSC spokesperson John Kirby said on Monday that “we are reserving … our judgment until we can see a full, more complete tabulation of votes,” and one senior administration official indicated to reporters that the U.S. would not act on its own in responding to the regime.
“We will work with partners around the world — whether it’s the [Organization of American States] or the G7 or many other partners — to discuss a collective way forward that continues to both encourage the kinds of changes and reforms that the Venezuelan people have called for but also exacts consequences on Maduro and those around him if they fail to move in that direction,” the official said on Monday.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday spoke with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a Maduro ally, about Venezuela and the two agreed that the election tallies at the polling station level should be released, the White House said. Countries like Brazil and Colombia, both neighbors to Venezuela under leftist governments, are considered by administration officials as crucial in handling the Maduro regime.
The U.S. has previously been quick to reject elections that it considers to be undemocratic, such as February’s elections in Belarus and the 2021 Nicaragua elections, both of which the government condemned the same day they were conducted. Republicans say they now see the administration’s caution with Venezuela as a sign of weakness. Sen. Rick Scott told NOTUS that Biden officials have been moving slowly because “they’ve never cared about the fight in Latin America.”
“They’ve done nothing to hold Maduro accountable,” Scott said. “What have Biden and [Vice President Kamala Harris] done? They’ve had three and a half years.”
The senator added that it was a “good idea” to request the tallies obtained by the opposition. He has been in contact with the Venezuelan opposition, who say “they would like the Biden administration to recognize González as the president-elect,” the senator told NOTUS.
In the days before the Venezuelan elections, some House Democrats led by Reps. Gerry Connolly and Debbie Wasserman Schultz sent a letter urging the Biden administration “to continue its use of all available tools and work with partners and allies in Latin America and Europe to apply pressure on the Venezuelan government in order to deter any actions that could undermine the electoral process.”
In the letter, the Democrats said any attempt to “undermine the democratic process” would be met with “strict consequences,” including targeted sanctions. However, since the election, Democrats seem to have adopted the administration’s careful stance.
Sen. Ben Cardin told NOTUS that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which he chairs, is “looking for an opportunity this week to do something.”
“I think it’s important what the international community [does], particularly in our hemisphere, with the neighboring countries to make it clear that this is unacceptable by the Maduro regime,” Cardin said. “I don’t want to prejudge that. I know people are talking sanctions, people are talking recognition, people are talking other issues, so they’re all on the table.”
Cardin overall indicated that it was important to first see how countries like Brazil and Colombia would respond.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, another Democrat on the committee, said she wants to see a “third-party accounting of what the vote really was” but that she wasn’t sure senators could ask the Venezuelan opposition for tallies because she is “not up on the international rules in terms of what we can and cannot request.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, another Foreign Relations Committee member, said, “This is an ongoing crisis” and did not want to get ahead of the Biden administration.
—
Oriana González is a reporter at NOTUS.