Even in 2020, it took many days before they called the election and released counts. Maduro is saying they tried to release it but got hacked, which I know is unbelievable to people here, but it is 100% within the US’s power and interest to do so. I admit it doesn’t look good, but if the government doesn’t get data out within a couple days, I’d be more inclined to believe the opposition. I just don’t want to rush to anything considering the history of elections in this country and US meddling, it’s perhaps making me overly cautious lol.
Also, in their defense, socialism has helped people in countries of equivalent development more than capitalism every single time so that makes sense. Argentina has already speed run a higher inflation rate than Venezuela with their great capitalist policies. For globally south countries, “free markets” always means letting foreign companies trade local resources, at the cost of losing sanctions from those foreign companies, which artificially make it seem like those policies were better than they actually were. Maduro has made lots of mistakes but an alternate left candidate would be more likely to help the country than a right-wing one.
Now Venezuela isn’t super socialist, and I heard Gonzalez is supposed to be kinda centrist, so hopefully it’s not that bad if he ends up in charge. But currently, Machado also seems like the one saying everything and leading the movement, and she’s already revealed herself to be pro Zionist, which reveals a pro-imperialist sentiment, which is a red flag to me.