2024 Venezuelan political crisis

The 2024 Venezuelan political crisis was a period of crisis in Venezuela, aggravated after the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election results were announced. The 2024 election was held to choose a president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025. Incumbent Nicolás Maduro ran for a third consecutive term, while former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia represented the Unitary Platform (Spanish: Plataforma Unitaria Democrática, PUD), the main opposition political alliance, after the Venezuelan government barred leading candidate María Corina Machado from participating.

International monitors called the election neither free nor fair, citing the Maduro administration having controlled most institutions and repressed the political opposition before and during the election. Academics, news outlets and the opposition provided strong evidence showing that González won the election by a wide margin. The National Electoral Council (CNE) announced results claiming a narrow Maduro victory. The results were rejected by American charity the Carter Center , the Organization of American States (OAS), and the United Nations. Political scientist Steven Levitsky called the official results "one of the most egregious electoral frauds in modern Latin American history".

A 6 August article in The New York Times stated that the CNE declaration that Maduro won "plunged Venezuela into a political crisis that has claimed at least 22 lives in violent demonstrations, led to the jailing of more than 2,000 people and provoked global denunciation." In the aftermath of the government's announcement of the results, protests occurred across the country, as the Maduro administration initiated Operation Tun Tun, a crackdown on dissent, and detained opposition political figures. Criminalization of protest was condemned by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International. Maduro did not acknowledge the claims that he lost the election, and instead asked the Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ), largely composed of justices loyal to Maduro, on 1 August to audit the results. On 22 August the TSJ described the CNE's statement of Maduro winning the election as "validated". On 2 September, an arrest warrant was issued for González, and he left Venezuela for asylum in Spain on 7 September.

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