Venezuela: From hope to heartbreak to resistance in the streets in 24 hours
After accusations of fraud in elections Sunday, the country stands on the brink

For tens of millions of Venezuelans, Sunday started out as a day of hope— and celebration. Despite widespread fear —and sometimes fatalistic certainty— that Maduro would not respect the results of a referendum on his decade-long rule, many both within the country and without, reveled over the strongest challenge to Maduro since he assumed the presidency.
From Caracas to Madrid, to Bogotá, even in Canada and Australia, the 8-million-strong Venezuela diaspora celebrated elections in the streets in dozens of world capitals— despite the fact that the vast majority of them had been disenfranchised from the voting process by their birth country.
But as the day progressed, festivity transformed into tension as irregularities plagued election processes.




Long lines, especially in areas where the opposition tends to do well, forced some voters to wait 4 to 5 hours to cast their votes. Some voting centers never opened at all. By the afternoon, some lost their patience, quarreling with election officials and security forces alike over suspicions that the delays were intentional.
When polls closed at 6 p.m., many Venezuelans were still waiting to vote. Turnout, according to opposition election observers, was the highest it has been in years.
Meanwhile, the country’s election body, the National Election Council, (CNE), controlled by Maduro’s party, and which usually provides updates on voter-turnout and begins releasing counts, suddenly went silent.
That silence continued for 4 hours. Anchors at state media companies filled the information vacuum with meaningless banter, and at least one station simply gave up and switched over to showing a movie from the United States instead.
Just after 10 p.m., Maduro appeared on national T.V. “The results of the election are irreversible,” he said, and promptly declared victory with 51% of the vote, although CNE had still not released any voting data.
He blamed the delay on a "terrorist attack" on Venezuelan election systems from abroad, called on the people to "respect the results of the election", and "celebrate this triumph of the Bolivarian revolution.”
He offered no details or proof about the alleged terrorist attack. Opposition supporters immediately accused the government of fraud and demanded all data be released. But the CNE website, where that data is usually published, went dark (and as of this article being published is still not working).
Karen Rojas, 26, a Venezuelan living in Medellin, openly wept at an election results party attended by PWS. “The worst part is I allowed myself to hope against my better judgment,” she said. “I should have known nothing would change.”
She worried her brother, still in Táchira, Venezuela, would end up hurt. “Protests will start tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve lived through that before. I’ve seen what police do.”
“He is a hothead”, she said. “I’m worried he will get himself killed.”
Her prediction about protests was spot-on. In the morning, cacerolazos, Latin American pot-banging protests, echoed across the country. By the afternoon, police and protesters were openly clashing.
Venezuelan journalist Titi González posted a video of a panoramic view of western Caracas —once a stronghold of Chavismo— full of smoke from the spontaneous protests and subsequent clashes. It looked like a warzone.
By late afternoon, protesters had surrounded Miraflores, where the presidential palace is located in Caracas, where they openly clashed with police.
The government of Maduro found itself staring down something it has never faced before, a real revolution of the barrios. In the past, the response of security forces to social unrest has been absolutely brutal. Between 2015 and 2017, Venezuelan security forces killed 19,000 people for “resisting arrest” according to Human Rights Watch.
Venezuela has a population of 28 million people. For comparison, in the United States, which has a population of over 300 million, police killed just over 1,000 people in 2023.
At 6 p.m. on Monday, as protests raged on, opposition leader María Corina Machado gave a press conference in which she claimed to have proof of election fraud.
With 73% of votes counted, she said, the results showed that opposition presidential candidate González Urrutia was the true victor of Sunday’s elections.
By nightfall, multiple reports of colectivos (social groups set up by Hugo Chávez which also sometimes serve as militia enforcers of the government) attacking protesters flooded social media.
Protesters had also blocked major highways as well as the airport in Caracas.
In just 24 hours, the country had gone from hope to heartbreak, to active resistance on the streets against a security apparatus well-known for its brutality. What comes next is anyone’s guess.
As we write these words, Venezuela’s future is uncertain. A major and violent crackdown is a distinct possibility. We at PWS very much hope that dark prediction doesn’t come to fruition. But we also fear that it very well may.