The government brought the December elections forward by seven months to exploit the confusion and retreat of the social and political opposition, achieved through censorship, fraud, intimidation and persecution.

In the first months of 2025, after Maduro was sworn in as president for another six years, there was widespread confusion in the face of what had happened. Until the last moment, there had been hope that something would prevent another six years of dictatorship. It is important to remember that the human rights violations were so severe they prompted the International Criminal Court to launch its only investigation on the continent. Venezuela is experiencing the worst economic, political and social crisis in its contemporary history.

In this context, all parts of society sought to adapt to the new circumstances in order to survive. Within civil society, of which I am a member, a strategy of latency seemed to prevail, consisting of preserving capacities and waiting for a window of opportunity for political and social change to open.

It was precisely in these circumstances that the authorities attempted to present elections as part of a process of normalisation and reconstruction of legitimacy, severely questioned inside and outside Venezuela. They also sought to assess their own and their opponents’ capacities for mobilisation to decide whether to speed up the announced process of constitutional change, which must be approved by a referendum.

Constitutional change is the most important political milestone for the authorities this year, as it will provide them with the institutional architecture to remain in power despite being rejected by most people. Indeed, one of the objectives of these elections was to fracture the opposition coalition so it could not effectively oppose constitutional change.

Although the bill has been kept secret, available evidence suggests it will impose a so-called ‘communal state’, a new model of government that will eliminate universal, direct and secret suffrage in elections. If imposed, Venezuela will follow in Cuba’s footsteps and become an entrenched authoritarian regime tolerated by the international community.

Significantly, on election day, Maduro announced that the government would submit the constitutional change proposal to the new National Assembly, which is due to be sworn in in January 2026. He also stated that the government would push for a change in electoral laws so they operate on the basis of so-called ‘communal jurisdictions’. I believe this amounts to an acknowledgment of significant flaws in his electoral machinery, meaning he must find another way to guarantee a favourable outcome in the eventual constitutional referendum.

The opposition failed to agree on a strategy, thereby losing the main political asset that had produced the results it obtained on 28 July.

One group opted for a strategy of low confrontation and cohabitation with the authorities, deciding to participate and put forward candidates despite electoral conditions continuing to deteriorate and the process becoming almost completely opaque. This group hoped to gain political space, such as governorships, mayoral positions and parliamentary seats, as well as budgetary resources, in order to gradually erode the opposition leadership of María Corina Machado and establish themselves as an alternative for the 2030 presidential election.

However, their attempt to encourage participation failed to resonate with most people, who had lost confidence in the vote. Lacking resources, their campaign was mainly conducted on social media and failed to influence those outraged by electoral fraud.

Meanwhile, Machado’s camp insisted that no decision by this de facto government has constitutional validity until the central issue of the 28 July electoral fraud is resolved. From underground, with all its leaders and middle-ranking cadres either in exile or facing persecution inside Venezuela, this group called for abstention.

It should be noted that, prior to last year’s presidential election, 94 per cent of voters in the opposition primaries supported Machado for her consistency and confrontational attitude towards the authorities. This made it almost impossible for her to call for participation so soon after such electoral fraud.

The first bulletin from the National Electoral Council (CNE) awarded 82.6 per cent of the vote to ruling party candidates, meaning they will retain 23 of the 24 governorships that were being contested and 40 of 50 National Assembly seats. Currently the results for the remaining parliamentary seats are pending.

According to the CNE, turnout was 42 per cent, but this figure does not fit with the total number of voters according to the latest electoral register. This figure would only be plausible if the eight million people of voting age who have emigrated were removed from the electoral register. Clearly, the results have been manipulated.

Opposition parties that participated had estimated they would win five or six governorships, but they were only able to win the state of Cojedes. Unexpectedly, Manuel Rosales, the opposition governor of Zulia state, the second most important in Venezuela, failed to be re-elected, despite all the concessions he made to participate in the election.

The best-known opposition deputies elected were Henrique Capriles, Stalin González and Luis Emilio Rondón, who are now positioned as the main spokespersons for the less belligerent part of the opposition.

Venezuelans experienced the July 2024 presidential election with particular intensity. Despite their fear, they turned out in numbers for rallies in support of opposition candidate Edmundo González, queuing up the night before to vote. They monitored polling stations for irregularities, remaining nearby waiting for partial results, which they recorded on their mobile phones and shared widely. In the days following the fraud, they mobilised intensely in neighbourhoods across the country to reject it.

It is understandable that, following that monumental fraud, many decided not to participate again in the immediate future, as common sense told them there was no guarantee votes would be counted transparently or results would be respected. It’s important to note that non-participation does not mean people have given up on their desire for change; rather, they chose to express their discontent in a way that would not put them at risk in the context of political persecution and arbitrary arrests.

From a civil society perspective, these elections have provided a clearer picture of the changes that have occurred in Venezuela since the de facto government took power, and of how electoral processes function without democratic guarantees. It has been a painful learning experience, and we will all have to decide how to proceed in these new circumstances.

A second change has been an increase in fear among people as a result of intimidation-based policies. In the days leading up to and during the election, caution prevailed, resulting in more activists and human rights defenders leaving Venezuela. We must work hard at the community level to reverse the panic that has taken hold of society.

Politically, the results confirmed Machado’s popularity, Rosales’ decline and Capriles’ and Stalin González’s resurgence. It remains to be seen how much room to manoeuvre Capriles and González will have in parliament to stop the abuse of power and anti-democratic decisions. While Machado cannot be said to have emerged victorious, she remains the best representative of a significant part of Venezuela’s population.