Will Venezuela's hotly contested election require mediation? Will opposition 'turn out in streets'?

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00:00Joining me now from London is Dr. Christopher Sabatini, a Latin American specialist at Chatham

00:05House. Dr. Sabatini, thanks for your time. Nicola Maduro has claimed victory. This despite polls

00:12that showed his opposition rival, Edmundo González, was leading by between 25 to 30 percent.

00:19So what exactly happened? We really don't know. First of all, before the election,

00:25the president and his pro-government Electoral Commission were trying to game the situation.

00:32For example, Maduro's face appeared 13 times on the ballot. They were moving election sites.

00:38The election day, in a number of cases, opposition poll watchers were not allowed to enter the

00:45sites. But now, of course, the CNE, the Electoral Commission, has declared that Maduro was a victory.

00:50We still don't know the results. They simply declared him the victor. But we also don't know

00:56the ballots. In Venezuela's electoral system, it's a digital system. And each time you vote,

01:03it produces a paper ballot that is then deposited in a ballot box and can serve to verify

01:10how that particular area voted. And they're not making those available yet. And so we still don't

01:16know. If you go to the CNE, their website right now, it's still down. I think there's a lot going

01:21on behind the scenes yet that we still don't know. And how are voters reacting to the news?

01:28Disbelief, I think, is the most common reaction right now. I think we're waiting to see how the

01:32opposition responds. I suspect they'll be calling for peaceful civic protest. A number of opposition

01:38leaders have gone to the CNE demanding that they be allowed to review these actas, those paper

01:44ballots that I mentioned. But I suspect you'll see large protests because, as you said in the

01:48introduction here, Edmundo Gonzalez was leading in the surveys. And it's not understandable how

01:56Nicolás Maduro managed to win when by all accounts, the incredible survey accounts were demonstrating

02:04him with a sizable lead. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already made his disappointment

02:10very well known. But where does this leave the international community?

02:16Secretary of State Blinken is not alone. The president of Brazil has said he's going to

02:20withhold judgment until they see the full voting process. The president of Chile, who's a centre

02:26left leader, Gabriel Boric, has said that this really strains credulity, given the polling

02:32results leading up to this. And the European Union, Joseph Borrell, has also called for

02:37complete transparency of the electoral process. And so I think we're all waiting to see whether

02:43they provide these actas and allow people to be able to review them. Now, the CNE had disinvited

02:50the European Union from observing the election, and there was only a handful of credible election

02:54monitors on the ground yesterday. So what happens next?

03:00I think we'll see several things. First, we still need to see the official results from the CNE.

03:05They're still being tabulated, which is rare, because it is an electronic system. We should

03:09have had the results, really, as of last night. We will see what happens with the opposition.

03:14And I suspect what will have to happen is some form of mediation, perhaps,

03:20from the international community. But also, if the opposition turns out in the streets

03:24and the government responds, will the armed forces and the police forces

03:28seek to repress them? Will they be willing to fire on their own citizens after this election?

03:33And that's going to be an open question.

03:34Dr Christopher Sabatini from Chatham House, thank you so much.

03:40Thank you.

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