Good morning. A disputed presidential election deepens Venezuela’s distress – more on that below, along with a pair of Olympic golds and extinguished wildfires in Jasper. But first:
Today’s headlines
- As Israel readies retaliation against Hezbollah, some Lebanese rush to leave
- Alberta promises to toughen food-safety oversight after an E. coli outbreak in daycares last year
- The $6-million price tag for a new Canadian diplomatic residence in New York City is no big deal, says the realtor
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Protests erupted in parts of Caracas after Venezuela's contested election.RAUL ARBOLEDA/Getty Images
Elections
Venezuela in crisis
More than 36 hours after polls closed in Venezuela’s presidential election, the country remains locked in a political standoff as both the government and the opposition claim victory and thousands of protesters take to the streets. For the past quarter century, one authoritarian party – led first by Hugo Chávez and, since 2013, by Nicolás Maduro – has held tight to power. But the opposition, under former diplomat Edmundo González, believed it had finally generated enough momentum to oust the repressive regime. Instead, early yesterday morning, the government-controlled election authority declared Maduro the winner with 51 per cent of the vote.
“The official results are silly,” Rob Farbman, executive vice-president of Edison Research, told Reuters; Edison’s exit polls showed González handily beating Maduro 65 to 31 per cent. Many international leaders agreed. Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Canada had “serious concerns” about the results, the White House accused Maduro’s representatives of “repression and electoral manipulation,” and nine Latin American governments called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States over their “profound concerns.”
Venezuela is a country in crisis. Since 2014, a quarter of the population – nearly eight million people – have fled economic freefall, rampant violence, widespread hunger, collapsed public services and hyperinflation (at its highest, six years ago, inflation hit 130,000 per cent). “It’s reached the point where people are very desperate,” Yvonne Su, a professor at York University who focuses on forced migration, told me. “And that’s why there was a feeling that this election would have been, should have been different. People can’t access basic medicine anymore.”
Tilting the ballot box
Independent observers had already warned that Venezuela’s election would be among its most arbitrary. The government has obliterated dissent, making 15,700 politically motivated arrests between 2014 and 2023, according to human rights group Foro Penal. María Corina Machado, the popular opposition leader, built such a powerful grassroots threat to Maduro that the government banned her from taking part in the election. (González ran in her stead, though Machado campaigned alongside him.) The regime also prevented the vast majority of Venezuela’s 5.5 million voting-age expats from casting a ballot. Even that ballot’s layout worked to Maduro’s advantage: Nominated by multiple parties, he appeared right at the top a whopping 13 times.
This is Venezuela's ballot, and that's Maduro all over the top row.The Associated Press
Still, González’s campaign had been a rare source of optimism in a country grappling with the single largest economic collapse outside of war in 50 years. In 2014, Venezuela entered a deep, seven-year recession prompted by the drop in global oil prices. After Maduro’s contested 2018 election, U.S. sanctions, aimed to force him from power, made it harder for Venezuela to sell oil abroad and to import goods such as food and medication. Many Venezuelans earn less than $200 a month. It costs nearly twice that just to feed a family of four.
Understanding the exodus
Conditions in Venezuela have fuelled both the world’s largest displacement crisis and one of its most underfunded: Of the US$1.72-billion in aid that the United Nations requested, barely 12 per cent has been delivered. Roughly 85 per cent of refugees end up in neighbouring Latin American and Caribbean countries – it’s too expensive to go anywhere else.
“In any type of exodus, people with the capital to leave do so first, and we saw that with wealthy Venezuelans in 2014,” Su told me. “Then you just go down the list in terms of class.” Now, even the poorest and least mobile attempt to cross out. “In 2022, I was at the Colombia border, and I saw a lot of pregnant women, a lot of sick children, a lot of elderly people in wheelchairs and stretchers,” Su said. “These aren’t the people who would typically move.”
If Maduro holds onto the presidency, that exodus will only accelerate; one poll found that nearly a fifth of Venezuelans plan to leave by the end of the year. “It really is a good indicator that you should not stay in this country,” Su said. “If the election is so brazenly stolen, it signals to people that they can expect more of the same – which is not a lot.”
Paris 2024
‘I definitely knew that I had the gold medal going into that last 100 metres.’
Medal No. 2 for Mcintosh.FRANCOIS-XAVIER MARIT/Getty Images
By the time Summer McIntosh touched the wall in the 400-metre individual medley – one of the sport’s most gruelling races – she was a jaw-dropping 5.69 seconds ahead of the next swimmer. She was also, luckily, in the pool: Yesterday, Olympic officials said pollution levels in the Seine were too high and postponed the men’s triathlon. At the foot of the Eiffel Tower, in a packed and deafening Champ-de-Mars Arena, Christa Deguchi nabbed Canada’s first-ever gold medal in judo, while over at Roland Garros, Djokovic cruised past Nadal. And when it comes to stunning scenery – as well as Marie Antoinette-themed obstacles – you can’t do much better than equestrian at Versailles. For all our Olympics coverage, go to tgam.ca/olympics-daily.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: The last wildfire hotspots in Jasper have been extinguished, but it’s still unclear when the 10,000 evacuees can return to survey the damage.
Abroad: Joe Biden is pushing for major Supreme Court reform, proposing 18-year term limits, a code of ethics and a reversal of the recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Fishy business: Most people who get sick don’t go to the doctor, but they do go to the bathroom – and Ontario has an excellent system for monitoring diseases like COVID through wastewater. So why is the province shutting it down?
Fishier business: Across a stretch of rapidly warming sea between Nova Scotia to Cape Cod, two separate species of starfish (one plump, one tapered) are vigorously crossbreeding in the wild.