On Monday September 30, the Council of Europe awarded its Vaclav Havel prize, rewarding human rights defenders, to Venezuelan opponent Maria Corina Machado. Mme Machado, 56, who has been living in hiding in Venezuela since President Nicolas Maduro’s disputed re-election in July, was competing against Azerbaijani activist Akif Gurbanov and Georgian feminist Babutsa Pataraia.
Mr. Maduro, whose victory was validated by the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice on August 22, was proclaimed winner with 52% of the votes by the National Electoral Council, which however did not make public the minutes of the offices voting. According to the opposition, which published the vote count provided by its scrutineers, its candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, obtained more than 60% of the votes.
Threatened with prison in his country, Mr. Gonzalez Urrutia went into exile in Spain, which granted him asylum. After the announcement of Mr. Maduro’s re-election, spontaneous demonstrations left 27 dead and 192 injured. Some 2,400 people were also arrested, according to official sources.
Read also | Venezuela: the opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, demonstrates to have its presidential victory recognized
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Out of a population of 30 million Venezuelans, 7 million have fled the country since 2014 due to the political and economic crisis the country is going through, and experts expect a new wave of migration.
Endowed with 60,000 euros, the Vaclav-Havel prize has rewarded each year since 2013 a personality from civil society for their “exceptional actions in favor of human rights in Europe and beyond”recalls the Council of Europe.
Vaclav Havel, fighter of totalitarianism, lasting symbol of opposition to despotism and president of Czechoslovakia then of the Czech Republic from 1989 to 2003, died on December 18, 2011, at the age of 75.
Venezuela: why is Nicolas Maduro’s victory contested? Understand in three minutes
Cartoon with his image, derivative products, crowd baths… Nicolas Maduro had put all the chances on his side to be re-elected for a third term at the head of Venezuela. And he obtained the expected result on Sunday July 28, despite the polls which showed him losing.
A few days after the results of the election, Monday July 29, it is difficult to see clearly. If the victory of the outgoing president was officially announced by the National Electoral Council, nine Latin American countries are demanding a “complete review of results”. The opposition refuses to recognize the official results, which announce 51.20% of the votes in favor of Nicolas Maduro. According to her, it was her candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who won the election, with more than 70% of the votes.
In this video, we take stock of the political context of this contested election and the criticisms leveled, inside and outside the country, against the Chavista heir.
To find out more about the economic crisis that has shaken the country since the mid-2010s, we recommend the analysis below.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers In Venezuela, the economic issue: “Our country sits on a sea of oil and we do not have electricity”
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“Understand in three minutes”
The explanatory videos that make up the “Understand in three minutes” series are produced by the Vertical Videos department of the Monde. Broadcast primarily on platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, they aim to put major events into context in a short format and make the news accessible to everyone.
