South Africa should leverage its democratic credibility to lead an international coalition in supervising fresh, transparent elections to restore Venezuela’s sovereignty. South Africa rightly condemned the US unilateral intervention in Venezuela as a violation of the United Nations Charter, which obligates the US to respect the sovereign equality of all member states. The election should be supervised by a coalition of Latin American democracies, perhaps organised by Brazil, the European Union and several credible US observer groups, such as the Carter Center, National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute (if the latter two can raise the necessary funds).
International observers should arrive several months ahead of the vote to inspire hope among the Venezuelan people and public confidence in the integrity of the election. Members of SA’s Independent Electoral Commission could play a critical role in ensuring the credibility of the election. In Venezuela’s 2024 elections, officially, the now captured president Nicolás Maduro won 52% of the votes compared with 44.2% for his rival Edmundo González.
However, opposition activists had managed to gather more than 83% of the voting tallies, which showed that Maduro had won only 30% of the vote, while González garnered 67%. The opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, was barred from running. Her party declined to back the Maduro loyalist running in “opposition” but convinced González, a retired diplomat, to run as a Machado “stand-in”.
Read Full Article on Daily Maverick
[paywall]
On 9 November 2025, Machado published a Freedom Manifesto, which bears similarities to South Africa’s Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People on 26 June 1955. The preambles of both are a reaffirmation of national beliefs in universal values. South Africa’s version begins with the country “belongs to all who live in it”, while Machado’s version endorses “freedom” for all Venezuelans.
Dignity for all citizens is the common root in South Africa’s 1996 Constitution and the one Machado envisions for her nation. US President Donald Trump reportedly said Machado is “a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect”. He also reportedly said the major oil companies would spend billions of dollars repairing Venezuela’s energy sector, without credible evidence of those corporations being willing to again take the risks, given their past claims for redress and the current glut of oil causing rock-bottom prices.
[/paywall]
