A new danger for Venezuela’s autocrat
A CACOPHONY of revving motorcycle engines, vuvuzela trumpets, salsa music and chants of “this government is going to fall” filled the streets of Caracas on July 4th at an opposition rally in the capital to mark the start of 24 days of official campaigning before the presidential election. Most in the crowd of several thousand were there to see María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s popular opposition leader, who has become a symbol of resistance to the authoritarian regime of President Nicolás Maduro. Perched atop a lorry and dressed in jeans, she blew kisses of appreciation to her giddy supporters. “We are counting the days until we will be free,” cried one woman, as the convoy passed.
At the last presidential election in 2018 Mr Maduro secured re-election by disqualifying the main opposition candidates and parties and by discouraging voting (turnout was 46%). This election looks trickier for the regime: stealing it against a united and seemingly mobilised opposition, and with palpable disillusion among many government supporters, might not be easy.
Last October the government and the opposition met in Barbados and agreed on rules aimed at guaranteeing a fairer election, with international observers. In return the United States lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s oil and mining industries imposed by Donald Trump. But the government partially resiled from this. After Ms Machado overwhelmingly won a well-supported opposition primary, authorities confirmed her disqualification from office, for 15 years, on trumped-up grounds. It later withdrew an invitation to the European Union to send election observers, citing its sanctions against people in the regime.
In the past Ms Machado, a conservative from a once-wealthy family of industrialists, argued that voting against a dictatorship was pointless. Undeterred by her banning, this time she has urged everyone to vote for a substitute: Edmundo González, a 74-year-old former ambassador who has never stood for office before. In a survey last month by Delphos, a pollster, 52% backed him, with Mr Maduro on just 25%.
For months Ms Machado has criss-crossed the country holding rallies in provincial cities and rural towns. The government bans her from taking flights, so she travels by car, boat or even canoe. Now often accompanied by Mr González, she is met by teeming crowds at every stop. Her generally brief stump speeches focus on corruption and mismanagement by Mr Maduro’s regime, whose rule has impoverished Venezuela and torn it apart: 7.7m, or a quarter of the population, have emigrated, according to the UN. Her message is that the election on July 28th is an opportunity: whatever fraud the regime might attempt, a massive protest vote could at last topple it, a quarter of a century after Hugo Chávez, Mr Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, took power.
Chávez, who died in 2013, was blessed with charisma and a massive oil boom. He had little need to cheat. He used his electoral victories to centralise power, seizing control of the judiciary, the armed forces, most of the media and the electoral authority. Mr Maduro, a gruff former bus driver, has never enjoyed majority support. In 2015, when the opposition unexpectedly won an election for the National Assembly in the last reasonably fair vote held in Venezuela, the government used its puppet courts to castrate the legislature. In December it organised a referendum on whether Venezuela should annex two-thirds of neighbouring Guyana, in a bid to use jingoism to rally the masses. It was a flop. While the government claimed 10.4m voted, independent observers reckoned the figure was no more than 3m.
The government blames the economic collapse on sanctions (though it predates them) in which it says the opposition is complicit. But the regime’s internal polling shows that in a fair vote Mr Maduro would be “totally doomed”, according to a source in the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). Nevertheless it appears determined to cling to power—through intimidation. At least 37 opposition activists have been arrested this year. The tax authority has moved to close down any hotel or even snack bar which Ms Machado or Mr González uses while campaigning. One establishment, a family-run empanada shop in a village in Guárico state, was raided 30 minutes after Ms Machado had stopped for breakfast. “It’s unfair because we welcome everyone who comes in,” said the owner, Corina Hernández.
Left-wing governments in Brazil and Colombia, which have friendly relations with Mr Maduro, have publicly called for a fair contest. Among outsiders, only the Carter Centre, an NGO, has been invited to observe the voting. But there will be many other watching eyes, including thousands of volunteers organised by the opposition. Venezuela’s electronic voting system, introduced by Chávez, makes ballot stuffing hard. “It is impossible to do an electronic fraud,” claims Roberto Picón, who served as one of two opposition nominees on the electoral authority until 2023.
The government could try to change the rules. There are rumours that the election may yet be postponed, perhaps by the expedient of manufacturing a border incident with Guyana or even a purported assassination attempt against Mr Maduro. On July 8th the attorney-general, Tarek William Saab, alleged that a Colombian paramilitary group had been contacted by representatives of the opposition. The defence minister, Vladimir Padrino López, claimed that the opposition was trying to create an atmosphere of “civil war”.
Some in the opposition fear that the government could also try to create confusion by disqualifying the main opposition alliance, known as the Democratic Unity Table (MUD). It is one of three parties backing Mr González. In that case, if a voter were to mistakenly press the MUD card on the touchscreen of the voting machines, their choice would be void.
Such deliberate deception would have a cost. “If they remove the MUD card, I cannot see how we can possibly recognise the result of the election,” said a European diplomat in Caracas. The United States would probably follow suit. In April it reimposed some sanctions because of the government’s failure to respect the Barbados agreement. In a renewal of direct talks with the government via a video call on July 3rd Joe Biden’s administration again called for “competitive and inclusive” elections. Mr Maduro hopes for further relief from sanctions and for the administration to scrap a $15m bounty, imposed in 2020, for information leading to his arrest.
Blatant fraud might also create friction with the armed forces, the ultimate arbiter of power in Venezuela. The high command has long stayed loyal to the memory of Chávez, himself an army officer. Many generals have benefited from the crony capitalism that has flourished under Mr Maduro. Might there be limits to that loyalty? “If the elections are stolen, I am sure that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces will join civil disobedience,” said an anonymous serving general, in a story reported in May by Sebastiana Barráez, a Venezuelan defence correspondent now in exile.
It is implausible but not impossible that the government loses and accepts defeat, opening what would be a complicated transition. At the opposition rally in Caracas, an elderly man watched as the crowd jeered at a passing car covered in PSUV logos. “Dictatorships here are all the same.” he said. “They seem so powerful. And then they are not.” In any event, at least Ms Machado has given many Venezuelans hope, however slender. ■
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