By Earl Bousquet

After a 59% turnout, President Maduro was re-elected with 5,150,000 votes (51.2%), while Opposition challenger Edmundo González scored 4,445,978 votes (44.2%).
Officially, some 21,620,705 voters at home and 228,000 residing abroad were entitled to cast ballots in over 15,000 polling stations and Venezuelan Embassies abroad, from Saint Lucia to Syria.
The then-Vice President Maduro was named by President Hugo Chavez as his successor ahead of his death in 2013 and he was re-elected in 2018, now starting his third consecutive term in 2024.
The highly-symbolic election took place four days after Liberator Simon Bolivar’s 241st birth anniversary on July 24 -and on what would have been President Chavez’s 70th birthday.
The election followed a largely-peaceful campaign that ended two days before, with large rallies by the ruling and opposition parties.
Voting started at sunrise with President Maduro among the first to cast his ballot after an overnight of calm and promising “Venezuela will awake in peace on July 29…”
Saying he had “no worries” about losing, he intimated that Venezuela “has entered another new era” and promised that after his party’s expected victory, he would “initiate dialogue with all national political actors in the society.”
Venezuelans voted with complete peace-of-mind Sunday, in a process observed by over-800 international observers -including the US-based Carter Center and the United Nations (UN)- and covered by 1,300 international journalists.
The victory was another decisive defeat for the Western press, which had loudly predicted Maduro would have been defeated by the divided opposition in an election that -as the Miami Herald claimed, “could have ended Maduro’s autocratic socialist rule.”
But, as it turned out, the Venezuela election not only overshadowed the Paris Olympic Games (that started a few days earlier), but also repeated the recent French experience where voters defied international press predictions of a far-right electoral victory.
Likewise, it also repeated the earlier experience in Mexico, where voters overwhelmingly defied misleading predictions that the new presidential candidate would have lost.
The Western press claimed all along that the opposition candidate was leading the polls -but without figures.
The most blatant claim was that President Maduro had “promised a bloodbath if his party loses” -which words were never uttered.
But despite it all, Maduro and the ruling PSUV won yet another free and fair election -the 31st in 25 years and their 29th national election victory.
Addressing supporters and the nation from the balcony of the Miraflores presidential palace after his victory was announced at midnight, President Maduro called on Venezuelans to continue to rally behind him and the PSUV to consolidate the gains that led to yet another election victory.
He promised his new administration will continue the economic and social reforms that since 2018 had been implemented, leading to the economic revival that Venezuelans experienced in the past three years.
Thanks to a series of radical reforms over a six-year period that consolidated in the last three (2021-2024), the nation has overcome hundreds of politically-driven externally-generated economic sanctions that vastly reduced the nation’s oil and gas incomes.
Following his victory, President Maduro and the PSUV have been congratulated by world leaders near and far.
Meanwhile, the following 20 facts and figures can help explain PSUV’s victory on July 28:

1. The Bolivar (Venezuela’s national currency) is back, with the most-stable dollar price in 13 years
2. June 2024 recorded the lowest inflation rate in 39 years -1.0%- down from 96.7% in June 2018
3. Hyperinflation was defeated through diversification of national production and Venezuela today has one million entrepreneurs and over 60,000 new brands
4. Food Sovereignty -from importing 85% previously, today 96% of food consumed is locally produced
5. Thanks to an Economic Recovery Program Launched in August 2018, Venezuela’s economy recorded 12 consecutive quarters of economic growth in the past three years
6. 18 ‘Engines of Growth’ developed to wean the economy off dependence on energy exports and circumvent economic sanctions
7. Venezuela recorded over-7% GDP growth from January to April, 2024 -exceeding expectations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggesting similar or better prospects by year’s end
8. Over US $3.5 Billion has been invested in Social Production in 2024, thanks to increased tax revenues of 105% in the First Quarter of 2024, over First Quarter 2023
9. Between January and June 2024, Venezuela recorded 1,097,595 international arrivals -a 202% increase compared to the 363,249 arrivals in the first half of 2023 and expectations for a 25% increase of 1,258,486 international arrivals by the year’s end
10. Areas targeted for special attention (before and after the elections) include: Oil, Food and Medical Drugs, Strengthening the National Industrial Platform and Ensuring ‘The Integral Recovery of Workers’ Incomes’
11. Venezuela leads economic growth in the region with 4.0% -according to the UN´s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC)
12. There are 910 Official Election Observers from over 100 nations and 1,300 international journalists in Venezuela for the 2024 presidential elections
13. Elections are held despite 936 unilateral coercive measures (sanctions) imposed by the US, European Union (EU) and other Western allies
14. Venezuela’s advanced electronic electoral process includes 16 certification audits -unparalleled anywhere else
15. The PSUV has at least seven representatives in each of 270,000 streets, 47,000 communities and 15,700 polling stations, with 800,000 democratically-elected spokespersons nationwide
16. 80% of PSUV’s election workers are women
17. 46,000 local committees supply food through 49,000 communal outlets nationwide
18. Before Chavez and the PSUV, 43% of Venezuelans of voting age couldn’t vote in elections for lack of ID cards
19. PSUV Candidate President Nicolas Maduro is nominated by 13 parties, while the Opposition is fielding nine divided candidates; and
20. PSUV has won 28 of the 30 elections held in the past 25 years.