The electoral day of May 25, 2025, in Venezuela has confirmed what numerous national organizations have warned: Nicolás Maduro’s regime continues to use electoral processes as mechanisms of control and authoritarian legitimization, far removed from any democratic standards. This election, marked by a profound lack of guarantees, political persecution, and institutional manipulation, was a worsened repetition of the fraudulent process held on July 28, 2024.
That 2024 process —carried out following the unconstitutional disqualification of opposition candidate María Corina Machado— was widely denounced as illegitimate due to the context of repression, exclusion, and absence of minimum conditions for fair competition. Rather than correcting course, the Venezuelan state has deepened its totalitarian drift, organizing a new election under the same structurally unequal conditions, while adding new layers of opacity, coercion, and control.
Predictably, voter turnout dropped to 12%, according to estimates by the opposition leadership, despite the National Electoral Council (CNE) reporting a participation rate of 43.18% in stark contradiction to the evident emptiness of the streets and the clear popular demobilization following the previous electoral fraud. Also predictably, the CNE proclaimed the ruling party’s victory in 23 of the 24 state governorships, as well as in over 80% of parliamentary seats.
One of the most serious developments related to this new electoral event is the arbitrary detention of political leaders and social actors. Juan Pablo Guanipa, former congressman and national leader of Primero Justicia, was arrested days before the election, accused of “inciting hatred” for expressing criticism of the electoral process. He is far from alone: to the hundreds of political prisoners already filling the country’s jails, around 70 more have recently been added —according to official figures— including journalists, human rights defenders, and political leaders. All remain deprived of liberty, many in conditions of enforced disappearance, and subject to serious violations of due process.
These detentions are part of a systematic policy of criminalizing dissent, carried out by intelligence bodies operating with total impunity. The message is unequivocal: to question power, organize politically, or denounce irregularities may lead to exile, imprisonment, or forced disappearance.
In the technical-electoral sphere, May 25 brought with it, among many other violations, an alarming decision by the National Electoral Council: the removal of QR codes from voting records. This measure, adopted without valid technical justification or public consultation, severely undermines vote traceability and the ability to verify results. By eliminating unique record identifiers, the door is opened to falsification and manipulation without the possibility of independent auditing—thus irreparably compromising the credibility of the automated voting system. The QR code had been crucial in evidencing the fraud committed by Maduro and the CNE in July 2024, and the regime is not willing to take any risks.
In the May 25, 2025 election, the regime also included on the ballot a vote to elect the “Governor of the Guayana Esequiba State”—a figure with no basis in Venezuelan law, created by the ruling party as part of a strategy of distraction and instrumentalized nationalism, with its only foundation being a consultative referendum whose results also remain unknown. This measure is not only unconstitutional but exploits a historic territorial dispute for internal political purposes, distorting true democratic debate and generating unnecessary tensions both nationally and internationally. The position is fictitious within Venezuelan legal framework, as the disputed territory is neither under Venezuela’s sovereignty nor effective administration, and furthermore, there is no formal law creating such a state, nor any clear territorial delimitation under national control.
The May 25, 2025 process was another electoral farce, designed to keep a political elite in power through repression and manipulation. This process was neither free, nor fair, nor competitive.
The international community has witnessed the lack of legitimacy of a process that has systematically violated citizens’ political rights and the most basic democratic principles. Venezuela does not need manipulated elections, but rather real guarantees of political participation, an independent judiciary, and the freedom to decide its future without fear or repression.