When it comes to Venezuela, we’ve been down this road be­fore.

The gen­er­al elec­tion of 2018 that saw Nico­las Maduro re­turn to the helm was deemed rigged and was re­ject­ed by glob­al su­per­pow­ers, who de­clared that then-Op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do was the recog­nised leader of the South Amer­i­can state.

Here we are again, with an­oth­er elec­tion re­turn­ing Maduro and his gov­ern­ment, fol­lowed by a wave of scep­ti­cism over whether the elec­tions were fair and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.

As it stands to­day, those crit­i­cis­ing the Maduro regime have pro­vid­ed no ev­i­dence to sup­port claims the elec­tion re­sults are false, just as Maduro’s gov­ern­ment has pro­vid­ed no sat­is­fac­to­ry proof it won fair­ly and square­ly.

Scep­ti­cism over Venezuela’s elec­tion re­sults is of­ten fu­elled by a recog­ni­tion that Maduro em­braces a more so­cial­ist po­lit­i­cal cul­ture that is frowned up­on by lead­ing democ­ra­cies, giv­ing rise to a view that every­thing his regime does is ne­far­i­ous and dic­ta­to­r­i­al.

How­ev­er, the no­tion of “in­no­cent un­til proven guilty” must ap­ply to all, which leads us to the junc­ture of where the bur­den of proof in de­ter­min­ing the truth­ful out­come of Sun­day’s polls should lie.

The Unit­ed States has al­ready made its po­si­tion known, call­ing on Venezuela to re­lease the re­sults from each precinct.

Guyana, still in dis­pute with Venezuela over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, has fol­lowed a sim­i­lar path, with the gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day is­su­ing a state­ment call­ing for the Venezue­lan au­thor­i­ties to re­lease ver­i­fi­able in­for­ma­tion that Maduro won.

These calls, which place the bur­den of proof on Venezuela, are not un­jus­ti­fied, giv­en that it was Maduro him­self who signed a pact for fair elec­tions last year.

That pact, known as the Bar­ba­dos Ac­cord, came in Bridgetown on Oc­to­ber 17, when Maduro and some Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion par­ties agreed to pur­sue elec­toral re­forms ahead of last Sun­day’s polls.

The lev­el of pos­i­tive ex­pec­ta­tion gen­er­at­ed at that meet­ing re­sult­ed in an eas­ing of US sanc­tions in­tro­duced in 2019 that have had sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic im­pact on the Bo­li­var­i­an state.

At the time of the sign­ing, it was hoped that if talks be­tween the Maduro regime and Op­po­si­tion had pro­gressed smooth­ly and the elec­tion re­form was un­der­tak­en as promised, then the US, Eu­ro­pean Union and Latin Amer­i­can gov­ern­ments could recog­nise the re­sults, lead­ing to a fur­ther eas­ing of sanc­tions.

But the progress made soon af­ter the talks was re­versed in March this year, when the Maduro ad­min­is­tra­tion de­tained two mem­bers of the lead­ing op­po­si­tion can­di­date’s cam­paign team and is­sued war­rants for sev­en oth­ers, an act the US viewed as un­der­min­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process.

In that light, it is for the Maduro regime to val­i­date the elec­tion re­sults and re­move all doubt the process was flawed or un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic. Al­low­ing for in­de­pen­dent scruti­ny and ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the re­sults is the best way of do­ing so.

In the mean­time, we await word from Cari­com and our Gov­ern­ment on their po­si­tions re­gard­ing the elec­tion re­sults.

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­za­lves’ call for Cari­com to ac­cept Sun­day’s out­come and recog­nise Maduro, is there­fore pre­ma­ture and cer­tain­ly does not co­in­cide with the view of Guyana, whose pres­i­dent Dr Ir­faan Ali is the cur­rent Cari­com chair­man.

T&T’s po­si­tion is al­so im­por­tant due to our close ties with Venezuela, made stronger by ne­go­ti­a­tions on Drag­on Gas and, more re­cent­ly, the Man­akin-Cocuina agree­ments.

We are ea­ger, there­fore, to hear Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s views on the Cara­cas re­sults.