According to Freedom House Venezuela has a global freedom status of 15/100 calculated on a weighted scale. It’s crucial to analyse the reasons why its democratic institutions have started to deteriorate since 1999 and why the first economy in Latin America during the 70s is now one of the poorest ones. These informations can lead us to deeply understand the polling results of the last elections and the escalation of the humanitarian crisis.
BACKGROUND: FROM CHAVEZ TO MADURO
Hugo Chavez started his political career in 1998 winning the elections with 52.6% in the most democratic way. Chavez before and Maduro now struggle with the same issue: their regime is “hybrid”. That means that albeit Venezuela is de facto a dictactorship, it’s fundamental to keep a democratic mask behind the elections in order to keep the consent. That’s because Chavez in the first place did not gain power by a coup, instead he obtained consent from the military forces by the economical growth inside the spectrum of a democracy that was destroying from within. The Pdvsa at the beginning garanteed that growth but, as soon as Chavez nationalised it, the course of the economy reversed. The problem wasn’t the nationalisation itself but the way the President spent the resources: the government, instead of investing and redistributing, increased state consumption only to have domestic and foreign consensus. This led to a crisis that during Maduro’s regime has badly deteriorated and has led to a diaspora of 7.7 mln people as well as in 2018 the 87% of Venezuelans were below the poverty line with an inflation of 13.000%.
Maduro got the power in 2013 when the consent that Chavez could gain from the resources of the Pdvsa abated and the consequence was the strengthening of the monopoly of force by the government. That was a point when the opposition grew as well as the population started to protest. In 2015 the Mud got the 56% and in this case the Costitution provides the establishment of the cohabitation that is formed by the cohexistence of the presidentialism and a fragmented political system because the policies and presidential elections are held in different years. The President refused the cohabitation and the opposition organized a protest, the Guarimba, that lasted 134 days. In 2015 the 70% of the population declared that they were in favor of Maduro’s removal. During the convocation of the presidential elections in 2018 have been found at least ten irregularities and the Mud announced that they intended to boycott the elections. Anyways in 2019 Maduro began his second term but the President of the National Assembly was Guaidò. UN Security Council gathered and the european countries issued a judgement to compell free elections otherwise they would have recognized Guaidò as the legitimate President but Maduro refused the ultimatum. Guaidò in 2019 formalized the request for humanitarian aid but the aid was forcibly blocked by the President.
2024 ELECTIONS
After months of negotiations in 2023 the Maduro government announced in Barbados a series of commitments to ensure an inclusive and transparent presidential election in 2024. By consequence US decided to remove oil sanction that since 2019 have prohibited investments in Venezuela’s oil and the international sale of oil and gas. Shortly afterwards the regime refused to accept the result of the opposition primary, arrested the ballot’s organizers. In addition the winner of the primary with the 90%, Marìa Corina Machado, has been excluded by the Supreme Court without holding a formal hearing or offering evidence to support the decision . To replace Machado the opposition agreed for a new candidate: a career diplomat who alignes Machado’s policy, Edmundo Gonzàlez. After that, according to the Venezuelan group Laboratorio de Paz , up to 71 between civics and political leaders have been detained and on 17th July the government detained the head of security of the Gonzàlez campaign.
To analyse the situation it’s important to state that the country is rated not free: the National Electoral Council is formed by a progovernment majority, the Maduro regime manipulates online conversations, has sought to expand its influence online through state-controlled media and engages in cencorship online contents. The CNE gave Nicolàs Maduro the win with the 52% of the vote and Edmundo Gonzàlez got the 43%. Soon after the opposition refused the lacked of detailed results: on the 30th of July his team stated he got the 84% of the polling stations. Thousands of Venezuelans, tired of a government that has not listened to their political will for decades, have taken to the street but at least 24 people have been killed and the National Guard has arrested over 2.400 protestors.
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
Due to a situation where the results lack of details, countries and istitutions have called for transparency around the counts. Four Latin American countries congratulated Maduro: Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras and Nicaragua as well as China, Iran, Russia, Serbia. Nine Latin American countries (Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay) released a joint statement urging trasparency and recognition of voter’s will and a second statement to demand complete review of the results in the presence of indipendent electoral observer. Usa, Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Uruguay are also among the countries recognizing Gonzàlez as the winner of the election. Brazil, Colombia and Mexico are playing a mediator role in the crisis, due to geopolitical reasons, they released statements to have a more complete report of the elections and called for a redo of the elctions (this idea was rejected both by Maduro and the opposition). Moreover a large number of international observers were prevented from participating in oversight July 28. The Carter Ceneter, one of the few groups allowed to enter, issued a statement decrying “a complete lack of transparency”. After Gonzàlez received an arrest warrant from Maduro accusing him of cospiracies, the tensions between Venezuela and Spain escalated because Sanchez met the self exiled opposition leader, recognized him as the winner and because Spain called Venezuela a dictatorship. The President of Venezuelan Parliament asked on September 11 to shut down all the relations with Spain.
The result of this international response is a complete geopolitical isolation for Venezuela. The worsening of the humanitarian crisis includes also a new wave of migration. Rubén Chirinos, president of Meganálisis, stated: “The main driver of this desire to migrate is the perception that Maduro will retain power because people associate his regime with economic problems, repression and lack of freedom.” One potential ripple effect is that a new round of Venezuelan migrants could strain relations with the democratic left, especially those countries that share borders with Venezuela: Brazil and Colombia. Another surge in Venezuelan migration is also likely to provide more business for human trafficking organizations. Globally human trafficking is lucrative, estimated to worth as much as $10 billion a year.
To summarize: a severe economic crisis, a population that wants a change is forced to leave the country, continous human rights violations, international isolation. Will Maduro be able to keep the power under these conditions? How long will the military forces support him? Will his populistic strategies like Christmas in advance be enough to keep his histrionic dictatorship alive?
Sources
Stefanini M., Adiòs Venezuela, 2019 Paesi Edizioni
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