On July 28, 2024, Venezuela held a presidential election. President Nicolás Maduro, seeking re-election, was challenged by the opposition’s unity candidate, Edmundo González. Venezuela boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves and, under President Hugo Chávez in the 2000s, achieved significant poverty reduction. While Maduro, who took office in 2013 after Chávez died in office, has largely continued his predecessor’s policies, the economy has stagnated due to collapsing oil prices and U.S. economic sanctions, leaving Venezuela facing an economic crisis.

On July 29, Venezuela’s electoral council announced that Maduro won 51.2% of the vote and González 44.2%, making it appear that Maduro had secured a third term. However, allegations of fraud by the government side quickly emerged, and the results were contested domestically and internationally. Both anti-government and pro-government demonstrations broke out, and the situation remained unsettled even a month after the vote.

It is not necessarily clear which claims are credible; at present, a great deal of unverified information that is difficult to confirm is circulating from all parties and third parties. How did Japanese media report on Venezuela’s election, and how did they perceive the uncertainty surrounding it? This article explores reporting on Venezuela’s election and comparable elections.

Election rally in Venezuela (2024) (Photo: Confidencial / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 3.0])

Problems in election coverage

Judging from reporting in Japan on the 2024 Venezuelan election, one could read it as if the result were clear despite confusion and uncertainty on the ground. Some Japanese reports even anticipated, before the vote, both a victory by the opposition’s unity candidate González and government fraud. For example, ahead of the election, Yomiuri Shimbun reported that “although multiple opinion polls show Mr. González with a commanding lead, there are concerns about election fraud and post-election turmoil.” Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun expressed similar views.

After the election, Asahi Shimbun also reported that “on the day, exit polls showed the opposition candidate … was far ahead.” The Mainichi likewise referred to the “results” of “exit polls.” In addition, Asahi reported the opposition’s claim that it had “independently collected tally sheets from 80% of polling stations nationwide and published the results by polling station on a website,” showing the opposition won 67% of the vote according to that data. And when Venezuela’s Supreme Court confirmed the results on August 22, outlets such as Yomiuri Shimbun (※1) and the Nikkei noted the court’s subordination to Maduro and amplified critical voices.

However, there are several problems with these claims. One concerns pre-election opinion polls. It is true that multiple polls predicted a lead for González, but there were also several other polls that predicted the opposite result, namely a Maduro victory. Among them, the firm Hinterlaces, which has been evaluated as relatively accurate in past elections, forecast results close to those the government announced this time. While the polling organizations are presented as “independent,” there are concerns that the political stance of those who run them—supportive or opposed to the current government—could introduce bias. Japanese media highlighted only those polls predicting a González victory, without mentioning the existence of multiple polls predicting a Maduro win or the possibility of bias in the polls favoring González.

Mr. Maduro (Photo: President of the Russian Federation / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0])

The categorical statements in Japanese media that “exit polls” showed a large lead for González are also problematic. Although Asahi and the Mainichi did not specify which “exit polls” they cited, conducting exit polls is illegal in Venezuela, and even if done, their accuracy and reliability would be questionable. The U.S. firm Edison Research claimed to have conducted exit polls in Venezuela, and because the U.S. government and major Western outlets cite only that firm’s research, it is reasonable to infer that the “exit polls” reported in Japan also refer to Edison’s. Yet questions have been raised about the independence of the company and the reliability of its findings (※2).

There are also allegations of falsification regarding the “tally sheets” the opposition published to substantiate its own victory claims, and these are being viewed skeptically. While Japanese media criticized the Supreme Court’s certification of Maduro’s victory, the opposition did not submit evidence to the court to back up its claims. Reporting did not address these developments.

The gap between reality and reporting

So what were the actual results of Venezuela’s 2024 election? It is entirely possible there was wrongdoing by the current government. The biggest problem is that the government has not released tally sheets from each voting machine. It is also a fact that the government created conditions unfavorable to the opposition, such as disqualifying an opposition presidential candidate.

On the other hand, even in the absence of fraud, this election result is not at all inexplicable. Although Maduro is not as popular as Chávez, the ruling party enjoys deep support among the poor, who make up the majority of the population, and has robust grassroots networks capable of mobilizing people. In the run-up to the election, large-scale pro-government rallies could be seen throughout the country. Meanwhile, the opposition leader (※3) is sometimes described as “hardline right-wing,” and is widely seen as favoring positions close to big business and the United States, such as privatizing the oil industry among others. Moreover, the opposition unity candidate González was little known to the public until just a few months before the election. At age 74, concerns have also been repeatedly raised about his health. Japanese media did not address these realities.

María Corina Machado and González on the campaign trail (2024) (Photo: Confidencial / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 3.0])

In this election, given the questionable credibility of information from the government, the opposition, and third parties alike, it is extremely difficult to objectively assess the actual results. While dissatisfaction with the ruling party is certain, questions remain as to how much support the opposition actually enjoyed. Amid such uncertainty, it is the role of the press to handle all available evidence and claims fairly, consider the agendas of the people and organizations involved, and evaluate them objectively.

Judging from coverage of Venezuela’s election in Japan, it is hard to say that such an attitude was in evidence. Regardless of the credibility of their sources, outlets excluded information favorable to the ruling party and preferentially highlighted information favorable to the opposition. As noted above, even before the election, reporting presented a simplistic morality play in which González would win and Maduro would commit fraud to prevent it. This tendency was not limited to newspapers; television news showed the same pattern. For example, NHK’s special segment on Venezuela’s presidential election (August 6, 2024) focused criticism solely on Maduro and depicted a González victory.

The United States in the background

Japanese media’s framing of Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election closely resembles that of U.S. media. Even before the vote, major U.S. outlets highlighted only those polls predicting an opposition victory and anticipated fraud by the Maduro government. After the election, major U.S. outlets emphasized “fraud,” and some went so far as to declare that Maduro had lost.

Behind such biased coverage in the U.S. lies the U.S. government’s agenda. Since Chávez took office in 1998, it is no exaggeration to say that the U.S. government has consistently sought to destabilize and overthrow Venezuela’s government. Some have argued that a U.S. “hybrid war” (※4) is being waged against Venezuela today. For example, in 2002 a coup d’état occurred in Venezuela; amid massive demonstrations against the coup, Chávez returned to power after about two days. It is known that the U.S. government was involved from the planning stage and fueled the coup. In 2018, it later emerged that U.S. officials had discussed coup plans with several Venezuelan military officers.

Juan Guaidó meets with U.S. President Trump (Photo: Trump White House Archived / Flickr [PDM 1.0])

Since then, the United States has provided funding to the opposition, local media, and other forces opposing Maduro. During the 2018 presidential election, the U.S. government pressured opposition leaders to boycott the vote and refused to recognize Maduro’s re-election. In that context, Juan Guaidó, who had just become president of the National Assembly, declared the vote invalid and proclaimed himself “interim president.” It is also known that Guaidó made this declaration after prior consultations with the U.S. He later attempted to overthrow the Maduro government by force together with a faction of anti-Maduro military officers, with support from the United States.

Having recognized Guaidó as “president,” the U.S. tightened sanctions first imposed on Venezuela in 2017, seized the assets and revenues of Venezuela’s state oil company located in the United States, and transferred them to Guaidó. The sanctions imposed since 2017 had already dealt a heavy blow to Venezuela’s economy and, according to one report, caused many deaths.

Why has the United States invested so much effort in toppling the Chávez and Maduro governments? One major factor is Venezuela’s oil. In 2019, a senior official in the Trump administration commented on the benefits a regime change in Venezuela would bring to U.S. companies. In a 2023 speech, former President Trump himself said that at the end of his term in 2021, “Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have gotten all the oil.” There are other reasons the U.S. seeks to interfere so deeply in Venezuela’s internal affairs, including an attitude of steadfastly preventing the emergence of countries—even small ones—that resist U.S. global hegemony. Historically, Cuba has been such a target, and past U.S. State Department documents even state that Cuba’s “successful defiance” of the U.S. is perceived as a threat. The Obama administration’s 2015 declaration that the situation in Venezuela was a “threat” to the United States likely had similar reasoning behind it.

Oil extraction facility in Venezuela (Photo: Repsol / Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0])

Japanese media avoid mentioning U.S. involvement

Despite such repeated election interference and meddling, Japan has touched very little on this context. For example, when the U.S. Secretary of State unilaterally “certified” González as the winner on August 1, 2024, Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun (※5) reported it without questioning the validity of the Secretary’s statement. Each article cited only the U.S. position, without mentioning the ruling party’s or third parties’ views, or the U.S. agenda.

Have Japan’s major outlets addressed U.S. interference and intentions? NHK’s special on Venezuela’s presidential election made no mention whatsoever of U.S. interference or influence on Venezuela; instead, it spotlighted how emigration from Venezuela affects the United States. An expert guest asserted that the U.S., previously less interested in Venezuela, came to “show commitment” due to its domestic immigration issue, but it was unclear what exactly this “commitment” referred to.

Looking across all Yomiuri Shimbun coverage of the Venezuelan election, mention of U.S. involvement is limited to a single sentence in an editorial: “Venezuela has faced chronic foreign exchange shortages and inflation due to U.S. economic sanctions imposed for reasons such as repression of the opposition.” In the same editorial, the paper repeated—without examining its validity—the U.S. Secretary of State’s “concern” that “the results do not reflect the will of the people.” Asahi presents a similar picture; its editorial includes the strong statement that “U.S. policy toward Latin America has long abused sanctions and interventions in its ‘backyard’ to prevent leftward or anti-American shifts. That history has produced authoritarian regimes and contributed to economic hardship,” but this seems to treat it as “history” rather than an ongoing reality.

Problematic elections and reporting trends

However, such biased reporting around elections is by no means limited to Venezuela. In many low- and middle-income countries, the content and tone of Japanese reporting on elections tend to vary depending on the country’s relationship with the United States. This tendency is especially pronounced in Latin America, often called America’s “backyard” (※6). When elections are held in countries whose governments resist U.S. interference and are deemed uncooperative by Washington, Japanese coverage tends to emphasize allegations of “fraud,” or report as if fraud were a given. Conversely, when a government is supported by the United States, allegations of fraud rarely receive sustained scrutiny in the press.

Protesters opposing the announced results confront police (2024) (Photo: Confidencial / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 3.0])

For example, in Bolivia’s 2019 presidential election, the Organization of American States (OAS) election mission reported serious irregularities after President Evo Morales—seen as uncooperative by the U.S.—was announced as re-elected. The U.S. government backed this report. Protests ensued, and Morales eventually resigned under military pressure. However, the OAS did not present evidence substantiating its claims, and it later became clear that there was no fraud in the election. The OAS, which is said to be influenced by the United States, was criticized by one research institution as “dishonest, biased, and unprofessional,” and many other scholars protested.

Japanese media emphasized “fraud” in Bolivia’s election and showed understanding for Morales being forced out. An Asahi Shimbun editorial stated that given fraud “had been pointed out,” “it is no wonder that the police and military defected” (※7). The Mainichi and Yomiuri (※8) similarly framed Morales’s resignation as the result of alleged fraud. None of the three papers questioned the OAS’s basis for its allegations, nor did they publish corrections after it later became clear there had been no fraud.

What about the reverse case, when a U.S.-backed government faces allegations of fraud? Consider Honduras’s 2017 presidential election. The result, re-electing President Juan Orlando Hernández, was announced after the vote, but multiple bodies, including the OAS, voiced allegations of irregularities, and the situation grew serious. However, with the U.S. government—supportive of Hernández—putting pressure on the opposition, the re-election was pushed through roughly three weeks after the vote. The United States had also repeatedly interfered in Honduras’s internal affairs in the past; for example, after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a 2009 coup, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked to prevent Zelaya’s return to office.

Japanese media did not appear to view allegations of irregularities in the 2017 Honduran election as a problem. Asahi Shimbun treated the allegations merely as the opposition’s claims (※9) and, in a separate piece, reported the election authority’s announcement of the incumbent’s victory in a matter-of-fact manner (※10). The Mainichi (※11) and Yomiuri (※12) were similar. None mentioned concerns raised by third parties like the OAS or U.S. interference.

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales (Photo: The Presidential Press and Information Office / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0])

Reporting trends seen around the world

These reporting tendencies are evident far beyond Latin America. For example, while not an election fraud allegation, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted in 2022 by a vote of no confidence. It later emerged that the U.S. government, which viewed Khan as uncooperative, had pressured other government actors to adopt the no-confidence motion. Yet Japanese media did not question the vote of no confidence. In Egypt’s 2023 presidential election, the government thoroughly barred other candidacies and suppressed criticism; incumbent Abdel Fattah el-Sisi then won re-election with 90% of the vote. Japanese media did not appear particularly critical of this election; they did not feature it in editorials and reported the result in a matter-of-fact way (※13).

In these election reports, there were also differences in the language used to describe governments. For example, terms like “dictatorial” or “authoritarian” appeared multiple times in the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, and Yomiuri Shimbun with regard to President Maduro and his government. In the Mainichi, the term “authoritarian” appeared in nine articles within the three weeks before and after the 2024 election.

However, regarding Egypt’s 2023 presidential election, none of these newspapers used the word “dictatorship.” Even in articles about Saudi Arabia—which does not hold elections—the word “dictatorship” does not appear in these papers’ reporting. Might this be related to those governments’ close ties with the U.S. and Japan?

Election poster for Egypt’s President Sisi (Photo: BavKraft / Wikimedia Commons [CC0 1.0])

Conclusion

This article compared several cases, but of course each country’s elections occur under different circumstances and cannot be treated identically. Still, when Japanese media report on contested elections abroad, there does seem to be a pattern of influence from the U.S. government and media. Another GNV study has shown that the volume of international reporting in Japan is influenced by that of the New York Times. The present article suggests that Japanese media are influenced by the United States not only in deciding which countries to prioritize, but also in how they frame events in those countries.

As for Latin America, Japanese media show generally low interest; even within the small corpus of international news, the region accounts for at most about 2% of coverage. Each outlet’s reporting networks in the region are also sparse, often covering all of Latin America from a single bureau in Brazil. Under such conditions, original reporting and fact-checking are difficult, and outlets may end up echoing the views of major U.S. media.

Serious questions remain as to whether the kind of reporting seen here captures realities on the ground. Meanwhile, Yomiuri Shimbun’s editorial on Venezuela’s presidential election argues: “If the method of using elections to legitimize authoritarian rule becomes widespread, trust in democracy will be undermined. Japan cannot remain indifferent.” We hope that, based on such awareness, Japan’s election reporting abroad will be re-examined.

※1 Yomiuri Shimbun, “Supreme Court confirms president’s re-election — Venezuela,” August 24, 2024.

※2 In the 2023 opposition primary, María Corina Machado was selected as the opposition’s unity candidate, but she was disqualified for, among other reasons, having expressed support for a coup. González became the unity candidate in her place, but Machado has become the opposition leader.

※3 Edison Research’s main clients include U.S. government information agencies (the U.S. Agency for Global Media: USAGM) that broadcast to foreign publics, such as Voice of America, and it also conducts polling in countries prioritized by the U.S. government, including Iraq and Ukraine. In other words, it is highly likely that the U.S. government commissioned this research, which could have influenced the results.

※4 “Hybrid war” is often defined as “the use of various military and non-military means in situations short of full-scale war, or deliberately avoiding a full-scale war, to achieve objectives.”

※5 Yomiuri Shimbun, “U.S. Secretary of State: ‘Opposition won’ — Venezuela presidential election; demands resignation of incumbent,” August 3, 2024.

※6 President Joe Biden referred to Latin America as the United States’ “front yard” in 2022.

※7 Another reason cited was that Morales had “distorted interpretation” of the constitution’s presidential term limit and altered the number of re-elections permitted.

※8 Yomiuri Shimbun, “Bolivian president flees abroad — fraud allegations; Mexico grants asylum,” November 13, 2019.

※9 Asahi Shimbun, “President undecided: Honduras sees protest deaths,” December 4, 2017.

※10 Asahi Shimbun, “(The World at 24 Hours) Incumbent declared winner — Honduras presidential election,” December 19, 2017.

※11 Mainichi Shimbun, “Honduran presidential election: President Hernández declared re-elected three weeks after vote,” December 18, 2017.

※12 Yomiuri Shimbun, “Honduran president: electoral body announces incumbent’s re-election three weeks after vote,” December 19, 2017.

※13 Yomiuri Shimbun, “Egypt: President Sisi wins third term — turnout rises to 66%, crushes three rivals,” December 19, 2023.

Writer: Virgil Hawkins

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