Today, after a decade of economic calamity and political repression, Venezuela stands on the brink of a once-unimaginable shift. A presidential election on Sunday could see Maduro not just lose, but lose narrowly. Opinion polls put him by double digits behind his opposition opponent, Edmundo González—a soft-spoken 74-year-old former diplomat who ran after authorities disqualified popular opposition leader María Corina Machado. It is far from certain that Maduro will accept defeat and allow such an outcome, but his opponents are optimistic.
“We are convinced that our margin of victory will be so overwhelming that it will open a new political reality in the country and open spaces for negotiation,” González told my colleagues earlier this month.
“If the margin is as wide as we think, it will be something impossible to hide and the legitimacy of the regime will be gone,” Roberto Patiño, a prominent social activist and community organizer, told me this week. Maduro, feeling his political horizon narrowing, has recently raised fears about an opposition victory, saying it would lead to “a fratricidal civil war provoked by the fascists” and warning of a “bloodbath.”
Maduro sits atop the ruins of the socialist state built by Chavez. The latter’s populist tone and redistributive zeal have won him a huge base of support in the country, which at the turn of the 20th century was one of Latin America’s richest but also one of its most unequal. But years of kleptocracy and mismanagement have ruined Venezuela’s vital oil industry and ravaged the country’s economy. U.S. sanctions and the toll of the pandemic haven’t helped either. As a result, nearly 8 million Venezuelans — about a quarter of the population — have been forced to flee the country as economic migrants, an exodus that has continued across the hemisphere and all the way to the U.S. southern border. For many who remain, including large segments of the working class who once supported Chávez, a vote against the regime offers a glimmer of hope.
The country’s impoverishment is accompanied by a rise in autocracy. “Politically, the regime is no longer truly populist. But neither is it left-wing, like Chile or Brazil. Venezuela is a political-military dictatorship close to Russia and Iran – and especially to Cuba, its ideological ally,” writes Enrique Krauze in the opinion pages of the Washington Post. “The specific instrument of power has been co-optation and repression – of political parties, candidates, business leaders, academics, students and journalists. The separation of powers, freedom of expression, guarantees of individual rights and trust in the electoral system – all of this has long since disappeared in Venezuela.”
Analysts expect a change in leadership could open a new chapter for the country, moving it closer to fiscal stability and improved economic prospects. But even if Maduro’s regime allows elections to be held and the opposition to win, few expect a smooth transition. “You have to recognize that changing an authoritarian system doesn’t happen overnight,” Patiño told me.
Even if Maduro loses, his allies will continue to dominate the judiciary, parliament and armed forces. Most of the country’s top provincial governors and city mayors are on Maduro’s side. The opposition expects a negotiation process with Maduro that could allow it to exit smoothly. Patiño cited historical precedents for such processes, such as Chile’s move away from dictator Augusto Pinochet or the overthrow of Venezuela’s military dictatorship in 1958.
But all this remains hypothetical. The opposition had to wage an election campaign with all the cards in hand. Machado won an opposition primary last year, which saw a high turnout and galvanized momentum for change. The vote was allowed after negotiations between the Maduro regime and the Biden administration, which eased some oil sanctions as an incentive; these were reinstated in April, however, after Venezuela’s Supreme Court disqualified Machado from holding public office.
Still, Machado has remained the face of the opposition, campaigning across the country despite the many restrictions on the opposition holding events and the mass arrests of her colleagues. The campaign is powered by word of mouth, social media, and public enthusiasm. “When I go to an event, I don’t know if I’m going to have a stage, I don’t know if I’m going to have sound, I don’t know if I’m going to have transportation,” Machado told my colleagues Ana Vanessa Herrero and Samantha Schmidt. “We’re breaking all the myths of a political campaign.”
This moment marks a turning point from the previous period, when the opposition refused to participate in the elections organized by the Maduro regime, arguing that they were illegitimate. “We understood that boycotting the elections and hoping that the international community would do the work would no longer work,” Patiño told me. “Any change has to come from within. The starting point is the Venezuelan people.”
He does, however, acknowledge that international pressure and engagement are essential in a scenario where Maduro faces defeat. Positive signals were sent earlier this week by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a leftist close to Chavez. He warned against Maduro’s “bloodbath” rhetoric.
“I told Maduro that the only chance for Venezuela to return to normal is to have a widely respected electoral process,” he told reporters Monday. “He has to respect the democratic process.”
The Biden administration could also be able to claim a major foreign policy victory if the elections pave the way for Maduro’s departure.
“A year ago, skeptics would have said that none of this would happen, that the opposition would never unify, that the regime would never allow elections,” a senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under administration rules, told my colleagues. “The fact that we have gotten this far is, I think, significant evidence that the effort was worth it.”
washingtonpost
