Venezuela’s elections on 28 July will, one way or another, bring change to the polarized and economically troubled country.
For 25 years, the self-proclaimed Bolivarian Movement, named after Venezuela’s independence hero, Simón Bolívar, has run the country. Now public opinion polls show the opposition candidate Edmundo González leading incumbent President Nicolas Maduro by 20 to 30 percentage points.
More than 80 per cent of Venezuelans in a recent poll said they wanted a change of politics, including those who support the Bolivarian project. For the first time in decades, voters say they are willing to turn out to cast their ballots, a dramatic change from years of declining voter trust and participation in elections.
This potential for political change comes after years of centralizing political power under the former president Hugo Chávez, elected in 1998, and his successor Nicolás Maduro, elected in 2013 after Chávez died from cancer.
Under the two presidents, the judiciary, local government, electoral institutions and military came increasingly under partisan control. The government also moved to shut down independent media and civil society. When that didn’t work, it engaged in blatant repression. Today, more than 200 independent activists are in prison.
Venezuela’s economy has started to grow this year and last. But under Maduro’s presidency the economy has contracted by more than 75 per cent overall. Poverty has spiked to afflict up to 90 per cent of the population and last year’s inflation rate of 190 per cent was one of the highest in the world. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled the country, the vast majority since 2013.
While the Maduro government attempts to blame US and international sanctions for the tragic economic collapse, the downward spiral started well before the 2019 sanctions.
Not only are the migration numbers a national embarrassment to the Maduro government, but they are also making the political crisis in Venezuela a domestic political issue in receiving countries, including the US, Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador.
Venezuela’s opposition unites at last
Despite facing numerous setbacks and strategic failures, Venezuela’s opposition has shown remarkable resilience.
In the past, the opposition had struggled to remain unified and had split over strategies to force a change of government. In 2005, 2018 and 2020, opposition parties abstained from participating in elections in protest at what they deemed an unfair process. The effect, though, was to lock them out of elected positions in the National Assembly in 2005 and 2020 and distance them from voters.
In 2019, with the encouragement of the administration of then-US President Donald Trump, the opposition formed a shadow, interim government in the hopes of sparking regime change, backed up by US sanctions on the Venezuelan economy. Yet the Chávez/Maduro governments remained in power, and the opposition was left marginalized internationally and domestically.
This time, the opposition is unified and committed to remaining in the elections and citizens voting.
The international community’s active engagement and public commitment to defending the elections against Maduro government manipulation has been critical. This support, coupled with opposition unity, provides hope for Venezuela’s future.
That there is a prospect of change is thanks to international negotiations, the promise of sanctions relief or return, and the public support of the international community, including Venezuelan neighbours and governments traditionally inclined toward Chávez and Maduro in Brazil and Colombia.
International negotiations yield gains, then Maduro appears to backtrack
After months of quiet negotiations and years of prior failed efforts, on 17 October 2023, the Maduro government announced in Barbados a series of commitments intended to ensure a competitive and inclusive presidential election in 2024.
Those included a promise to establish a process to reconsider the reinstatement of opposition leaders previously barred from holding public office, guarantees to ensure the right of candidates to campaign openly and their access to media, and resuming government-opposition negotiations in Mexico.
Present at the announcement, alongside representatives of both the Venezuelan government and opposition, were officials from Canada, Colombia, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The following day, the US announced that it was adjusting the policy left over from the administration of President Donald Trump, of maximum-pressure sanctions. The US agreed to remove sanctions that since 2019 had prohibited international investment in Venezuela’s oil and gas sector and the international sale of oil and gas.
Shortly afterwards, though, the Maduro government appeared to backtrack. By the end of November, the regime had refused to accept the results of an opposition primary held in late October and had arrested several of the ballot’s organizers.
Political and electoral conditions continued to deteriorate in the early months of 2024.
While the Maduro government’s commitments in October were limited to establishing a process to consider the ‘rehabilitation’ of the three banned opposition leaders, in January 2024 the Supreme Court handed down a decision reinstating the ban without holding a formal hearing or offering evidence to support the decision.
This included the winner with more than 90 percent of the vote in the opposition’s informal primary, María Corina Machado.
After a failed effort to register a handpicked candidate to replace Machado, the opposition coalition agreed to support González, a little-known career diplomat, as the consensus opposition leader and stand-in for Machado.
Shortly after, the government arrested a new round of civic and political leaders, and more recently, up to 71 civic and political leaders have been detained by the government, according to the Venezuelan group Laboratorio de Paz. Efforts to disrupt and physically harass participants in campaign rallies have also become common. On 17 July, the government detained the head of security of the González campaign.
Voter confidence and the growing tide toward the opposition
Over time, when the opposition participated in elections, as it did in 2015 and 2021, it reclaimed electoral power and space. In 2015, opposition parties won a majority in the national assembly elections, though the supreme electoral tribunal stole a supermajority from them. In 2021, they gained municipal and state seats in regional and local elections.
The most recent example of the opposition’s increasing political power was evident in the 2021 regional and municipal elections. In that year, despite divisions within the opposition over whether to participate on an uneven playing field – noted later by an EU election observation mission – the opposition gained a presence in local government. It also won the governorship of Barinas, Chávez’s birthplace, which has been a political stronghold for his family for 22 years.
The victories demonstrated that even in unfair conditions, the opposition could challenge – and at times win – elections against a semi-autocratic regime.
The 28 July election
Unsurprisingly given the economic upheaval, Venezuelan citizens want change, regardless of partisan sympathies. How the Maduro government will respect and respond to that remains unclear. Also unclear is how the international community will respond to any efforts by the Maduro government to steal the ballot.
Internally, González’s support across time and multiple polls remains strong.
But more than a desire for change, one other factor shapes the potential for meaningful change: voter willingness to participate.
After decades of declining voter participation, more citizens now say they are ready to turn out.
Beyond 28 July: Possible scenarios
The Maduro government has thrown up numerous efforts to skew the election in its favour. These efforts to game the elections have included moving polling places to more pro-government neighbourhoods and buildings, manipulating the ballot to confuse voters and suppress voter turnout, and inviting minimal on-the-ground international election observation missions.
The government has also made it clear that it has no intention of stepping down, with the president recently stating that only his re-election stands in the way of a civil war bloodbath.
Apart from an addiction to power, another clear disincentive to step down is provided by international indictments and bounties that have been placed on the heads of leading members of the Maduro government, including a $15 million reward offered by the US Drug Enforcement Agency for information leading to Maduro’s capture and arrest.
There is also the threat of retribution by an opposition-controlled government, but one that the unified opposition has recently attempted to downplay.