I come for a civil discussion. Sorry, my question is a bit complicated.

Note: I am not asking people to argue whether Maduro is a dictator or not. You are free to do so and I will engage, but that’s not my main question.

What I’m asking is, how come most people, especially uninformed people or those who know very little about Venezuela, call Maduro a dictator? Even well-meaning critics of the abduction?

I’m not looking for “well they’re uninformed” answer. I am, sincerely curious how such an opinion is so, widespread?

I would expect uninformed people to take a simplistic, reductive approach of “well there were elections so I guess he can’t be a dictator”. That is assuming they speak on the matter at all.

A simplistic, surface level investigation reveals: there were elections. They were internationally monitored. Highly automated voting system. Etc. It would also reveal they’re challenged by international community, but I imagined most people would be skeptical of that.

I am not denying the presence of arguments against the validity of the elections, but none those arguments are the result of surface level investigation.

What are your thoughts?

  • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
    81·
    27 days ago

    Just reading though the Wikipedia page, he ruled by decree for a while, then ran elections that had results very different from the results of polls prior to the election.

    You are right that elections were watched internationally but the conclusion was that the 2024 result was almost certainly won by the opposition. Manduro’s government announced he had won without even providing any tallys.

    Academics, news outlets and the opposition provided strong evidence showing that González won the election by a wide margin[391][392][393] with the opposition releasing copies of official tally sheets collected by poll watchers from a majority of polling centers showing a landslide victory for González.[387][394][395] The government-controlled National Electoral Council (CNE) announced[396] possibly falsified[397][398] results claiming a narrow Maduro victory on 29 July; vote tallies were not provided.[399] The Carter Center was unable to verify the CNE’s results, asserting the election failed to meet international democratic election standards.[400] The CNE’s results were rejected by the OAS,[387] and the United Nations declared that there was “no precedent in contemporary democratic elections” for announcing a winner without providing tabulated results.[401] Analyses by media sources found the CNE results statistically improbable and lacking in credibility.[402][403][397] Parallel vote tabulation confirmed the win by González.[404][405][406] Political scientist Steven Levitsky called the official results “one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history”.[407]

    • balderdash@lemmy.zipEnglish
      7·
      27 days ago

      then ran elections that had results very different from the results of polls prior to the election

      I’m not an expert on Venezuela, but I do want to note that the exact same thing happened for Trump’s first presidency. All the polls said Hillary Clinton would win.

      • Sidyctism II.@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        4·
        27 days ago

        Not an expert either, just the first numbers i found: the us polls had a 2-5% lead for clinton. And they were (basically) correct. Clinton won the popular vote by a 2% margin. Thats on the lower end of the estimate, but i dont see a reason to assume some (widespread) fraud from this.

        From this guardian article, it seems in venezuela, the numbers were wildly different

        About four hours after voting ended, the government-controlled national electoral council declared victory for Maduro, eventually saying that the strongman leader had won nearly 52% of the vote to González’s 43%.

        But thousands of opposition volunteers had managed to collect about 80% of the voting tallies from polling stations, which showed a clear victory for González, with 67% over Maduro’s 30%. Two different independent analyses, from the AP and the Washington Post, reached similar conclusions.

        Note that they arent speaking of polls, but the actual voting tallies of the election. If these are indeed the real tallies, there couldnt be such a wide margin of difference

      • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
        41·
        27 days ago

        Yeah but even in the US, polls had Trump getting more than 16% of the vote.

        And there were watchers polling people about who they voted for as they left voting booths, and the results showed the main opposition candidate winning by a landslide. Plus the whole thing where the Manduro government said he won by a close margin but didn’t release tabulated results so it was just “trust me, I won”.

        • matcha_addict@lemy.lolOPEnglish
          2·
          26 days ago

          Results were released. Not sure what you mean by tabulated, but I assume you’re repeating the talking point about the tallies, which are the tallies from the individual polling stations. Those were also released. But the criticism was that the government announced the results before releasing those individual polling station tallies, citing technical problems.

    • matcha_addict@lemy.lolOPEnglish
      2·
      26 days ago

      A point on ruling by decree: Maduro was already democratically elected when he requested approval to rule by decree, and extended it or re-requested many times to combat Venezuela’s deepest crisis in history. The rule by decree doesn’t negate the election he won.

      On your second point: that’s the conclusion from sources with a clear bias and partisan funding. The tallies were released. You’re probably talking about tallies from the individual polling stations, which were released with a short delay, citing technical issues. And by the way, the US elections, for example, do not publish such tallies at all. So it is strange to call Maduro a dictator without saying the same of every US president, and every other world leader whose elections do not make polling station tallies available at all (let alone before announcement).

      • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
        1·
        26 days ago

        I want to be clear here, I am simply answering your question about why people think Maduro was a dictator. I’m sure there are counterpoints. Though ruling by decree is a notable feature of dictatorships, and knowing no more about it, it seems odd that a decree was needed if he was already ruling.

        On a side note as my comments may come across as supportive of the actions of the US, if we were going to have a world police there is no way I’d want the US involved.

        • matcha_addict@lemy.lolOPEnglish
          2·
          26 days ago

          Yes you’re right, I think the fact that the Wikipedia article emphasizes the rule by decree without explaining further can explain why many people arrive to they conclusion, you’re right. I appreciate your answer there!

          To add a bit more detail about why the rule by decree was needed, it wasn’t about a need to stay in power. Venezuela’s government system has limited presidential powers. The decree granted him more powers in order to be able to respond to the economic crisis.

          The decrees that he requested often times would last 30 days, 60 days, etc. Although the longest one exceeded a year iirc. I’m adding that as a clarifying detail on the role of the decree.