What to expect in Venezuela’s presidential election as strongman Maduro faces his biggest test yet

CNN
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Millions of Venezuelans are expected to vote on Sunday, July 28, in what many consider the country’s most important election since strongman leader Nicolás Maduro came to power more than a decade ago.

The vote pits the authoritarian Maduro – who has overseen unprecedented levels of poverty and emigration in the country – against Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – a quiet, bird-loving grandfather who has built a strong base of supporters despite being the opposition’s third choice after his two preferred candidates were banned from running.

But experts warn that the outcome of the vote could well be contested. Maduro has a history of clinging to power, they point out: his government has long been accused of rigging votes, and the 2018 election that re-elected Maduro was deemed illegitimate by an alliance of 14 Latin American countries, Canada and the United States.

The populist and former diplomat

Maduro, who took over as leader of the populist Chavista movement after the death of his predecessor Hugo Chavez in 2013, is seeking a third consecutive six-year term. His last term was widely boycotted by the opposition. The Organization of American States called the election a “farce,” noting that it took place “in a generalized context of a lack of civil liberties, with banned candidates and parties and electoral authorities devoid of any credibility, subject to the executive branch.”

At campaign events this year — typically lively and filled with dancing — Maduro has called his opponents “fascists” and “manipulable,” saying they would privatize the country’s health care and oil industry and “give away our wealth.”

Despite this, Venezuela saw its democracy rapidly collapse under his leadership and nearly eight million people fled the country. Inflation soared and food shortages multiplied, while the country suffered “the largest economic collapse in a non-conflict country in nearly half a century,” in the words of the International Monetary Fund.

Gonzalez, a former diplomat, is running as part of an opposition coalition known as the United Democratic Platform. His priorities include taming inflation, which is currently running at 64% year-on-year, and restoring trust in the country’s institutions of power, such as the judiciary, which is currently filled with Maduro supporters. However, he has not provided a road map for how he would convince an authoritarian government to voluntarily relinquish control and lead a democratic transition.

In recent weeks, his rallies alongside Maria Corina Machado, the charismatic leader of the opposition coalition who was barred from running in the presidential election earlier this year (as was her co-president Corina Yoris), have drawn impressive crowds, including some of the population long devoted to Chavismo. Both men have promised to build a country that can welcome the millions of Venezuelans who have fled the country en masse in recent years out of economic desperation.

Several other candidates are also running, but they have minimal support and are seen by the main opposition as allies of the government.

According to Oswaldo Ramirez, general director of ORC Consultores, the opposition has found support in “almost every corner of the country.”

“Electoral energy is back in the streets of Venezuela,” he said. “Never since the beginning of this political era has the opposition had a voting intention that was so largely favorable to it.”

Twenty-five years after Chavez and his socialist vision came to power, the elections represent a rare opportunity for Venezuelans to reshape the country — if Maduro is willing to relinquish control of the country if he loses. But analysts point out that Maduro’s history of alleged election meddling suggests he is unlikely to go quietly.

“This could be Venezuela’s last chance to restore democracy for a long time,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The level of fraud that the Maduro government is going to require is going to be so obvious to everyone that there’s going to be no way they’re going to be able to credibly advance in the election. They’re going to be caught red-handed.”

The ruling party has been interfering in the election for months. In January, the Supreme Court, controlled by Maduro, banned Machado from holding public office for 15 years. The United States said the move violated the Venezuelan government’s commitment to hold free and fair elections in 2023. Gonzalez was nominated as the candidate after Machado’s designated replacement, Yoris, was also barred from running.

Maduro’s government has claimed to have foiled a series of dubious opposition-backed plots to sabotage public infrastructure and disrupt the vote. Analysts see this as the beginnings of a pretext that Maduro could use to postpone or cancel the vote at the last minute.

Experts warn that Maduro could also try to provoke a military crisis with neighboring Guyana, after he and his supporters stepped up threats to annex part of the oil-rich country’s territory.

Some have speculated that Maduro could use the crisis as an excuse to suspend the elections.

Maduro’s government has also been accused of trying to sow confusion in the run-up to the vote, including by renaming some 6,000 schools that usually serve as polling stations. The government has also created significant obstacles for Venezuelans who have left the country to vote, including largely inaccessible passport and residency requirements, election experts said.

There are more than 21 million registered voters in Venezuela, of which approximately 17 million people currently live in the country.

A limited group of election observers, including a team from the Carter Center – a nonprofit organization founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter – will be on the ground to monitor the vote after Venezuelan authorities revoked an invitation in May to the European Union to send a delegation, citing the bloc’s sanctions against the country.

But the opposition and the international community have limited options if Maduro refuses to cede power, said Berg of CSIS. “The opposition can go out into the streets, mobilize, demand certain things, but if the regime comes into power and has the firepower to repress, as we’ve seen in other cases under Maduro, it could get very bad,” he said.

If the opposition wins, a six-month transition period is expected to include intense negotiation over amnesty for Maduro and members of his government, which analysts say he is certain to demand before any potential handover.

Maduro is currently facing drug trafficking and corruption charges in the United States and is being investigated for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Machado has indicated in recent months that the opposition has expressed its willingness to the Venezuelan government to establish a “serious negotiation with guarantees” for Maduro and his allies – if Maduro and his ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, step down in the face of defeat.

“We know the responsibility we have towards history, and if there are feelings that animate this process, it is that of reunification, coexistence and justice, never that of revenge and persecution,” Machado said earlier this month.