Comparing the Legitimacy of Maduro
President Nicolás Maduro will be inaugurated tomorrow, January 10, for his new presidential term after being elected on May 20, 2018, with 67.8% of the votes. However, some heads of government question his legitimacy, when they had lower percentages of popular support on their own countries.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, won with 46.09 percent of the votes in the presidential elections of November 8, 2016, in which there were 44.6 percent abstention. The vote represents 27.3 percent of the total electoral roll.
The case of Trump is very particular, because he obtained less votes than his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, of the Democratic Party (62,984,825 votes of Trump versus 65,853,516 votes of Clinton), but still he was declared winner by the way it works the US electoral system, according to Wikipedia.
The president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri, obtained 51.2 percent of the votes in the second round of the presidential elections on November 22, 2015, in which there was 19.23 percent abstention. In the second round this represented 26.8 % of the total electoral roll.
Juan Manuel Santos, who was president of Colombia between 2010 and 2018, was re-elected on June 15, 2014 with 53.1 percent of the votes in the second round of the electoral process, in which there were 52.23 percent of abstention. The votes received by Santos represent just 23.7 percent of the total electoral roll, if we also include all the people who abstained.
Sebastián Piñera, current president of Chile, was elected on November 19, 2017 with 54.6 percent of the votes in the second round of the elections in this country, in which there was a 50.98 percent abstention. The votes received represent 26.5 of the total electoral roll.
President Nicolás Maduro obtained 67.84 percent of the vote on May 20, in a process that had 53.93 percent abstention. However, the votes received by the Venezuelan President represent 31.25 percent of the total votes of the electoral roll, much higher than that obtained by Piñera, Santos and Trump, whose legitimacy has never been doubted. It’s important to mention that this election was boycotted by the same Lima Group, the US and opposition parties in Venezuela and chavista forces were threaten by right wing forces using fascist strategies to intimidate and force them not to vote.
The numbers were presented by President Maduro today during a press conference with international correspondents and it’s very relevant because those governments are among the most active on attacking President Maduro’s legitimacy.
JRE / AR
With information from Alba Ciudad
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