section_path: Background
section_name: Background
paragraph_text: Background
  
  On July 28, 2024, Nicolás Maduro declared victory in 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. According to the National Electoral Council (CNE), Maduro secured more than 51% of the vote, beating the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) candidate, Edmundo González, who only had 44% of the vote. The elections were not considered free and fair, mostly because they took place in an environment in which the Maduro controlled all branches of government and suppressed political opposition by jailing opposition leaders, disqualifying them from running for office or intimidating voters. María Corina Machado and other opposition figures said that Maduro government lost any claim to legitimacy after the flawed 2024 elections and his refusal to relinquish power. They said that 2025 election will also be illegitimate, especially amid ongoing political repression, arrests of opposition leaders, and widespread human rights abuses.
  
  In 2025, opposition politicians called for a boycott of the election. María Corina Machado said that participating in "a farce imposed by Maduro is to disregard the mandate" given by voters to the opposition following the disputed 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. Edmundo González said holding the election was "unviable" and "contradicts the mandate expressed by Venezuelans at the polls" in the previous year. Experts warned that the boycott could play "into the hands of the administration", saying that an opposition boycott of 2020 parliamentary elections allowed Maduro's coalition to regain parliament.
  
  A poll from the Center for Political and Government Studies found that only 15.9% of Venezuelans plan to vote in the elections. 74.2% of them said they would vote for Nicolás Maduro, while 13.8% said that they would vote for Manuel Rosales or Henrique Capriles. 27.4% of the people not voting in the elections said they did so because of the lack of trust in the CNE, while 23.9% said that voting no longer makes a difference. Another 14.4% said that they are not voting because it might undermine the protests against alleged fraud in the 2024 presidential election.
  
  On May 19, 2025, the Venezuelan government announced that it thwarted an alleged terrorist plot to attack voters with bombs and other weapons during the election on May 25. The government said that it arrested 21 Venezuelans and 17 foreigners who were allegedly planning to violently sabotage the elections. The government also said that it confiscated their phones to find out the origins and financing of the attack. In a televised speech, Maduro said that Albanian mafia and Colombian drug traffickers are responsible for the plot and that they were sent from Ecuador. He called them "mercenaries" and said the judiciary would take "necessary legal steps" against them. Vice president Diosdado Cabello said that he cancelled all flights from Colombia “until further notice” to prevent future attacks from happening. Cabello also said that the attack was sponsored by "certain far-right actors". Later, leading opposition politician Juan Pablo Guanipa, was arrested for allegedly masterminding the plot. He was charged with conspiring to sabotage the election, overthrow Maduro and damage the Venezuelan power grid. He was also charged with terrorism, money laundering and incitement of violence.