It would be easy to dismiss Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela as a done deal. The country’s opposition movement is challenging Nicolás Maduro, a strongman who has ruled Venezuela since 2013 and has made clear that he intends to continue doing so — saying last week that if he were not reelected, Venezuela could face a “bloodbath.”
Maduro’s government controls all public institutions in Venezuela and has been accused of electoral fraud in the past, most notably in 2017, when electoral authorities briefly showed that the opposition had won a gubernatorial race – only to reverse their decision in favour of the government candidate, an episode widely regarded as a blatant example of electoral fraud. In the run-up to these elections, a new report by local NGO Laboratorio de Paz says there have been more than 70 arbitrary arrests since the election campaign formally began on 4 July.
And yet uncertainty is the mantra in Caracas these days. The opposition’s campaign has invigorated its base, and Edmundo González’s candidacy has attracted widespread support at home and abroad. There is widespread agreement that Maduro’s government is facing its most difficult electoral moment in a quarter of a century.
An opportunity to rebuild Venezuela’s economic power
“The vote is on how long it will take to fix Venezuela’s economy,” Asdrubal Oliveros, founder of the Caracas-based Ecoanalitica, said in his weekly podcast on July 8.
Under Maduro, oil-rich Venezuela has suffered the worst economic crisis in a peacetime country in recent history. Once the fifth-largest economy in Latin America, Venezuela’s economy has now shrunk to the equivalent of a medium-sized city, smaller than, say, Milwaukee, according to IMF data.
After years of chronic shortages, most basic goods are widely available in Venezuela, but they are too expensive for most people to buy. Today, the minimum wage is about $3 a month, supplemented by the equivalent of $40 in government benefits such as food stamps and subsidized gasoline, and more than eight in 10 Venezuelans live below the poverty line, according to independent research by the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas.
While the opposition claims the collapse is due to Maduro’s policies and chronic corruption, Maduro argues that Venezuela has been the victim of an “economic war,” including widespread U.S. sanctions on oil, a crucial Venezuelan export, that were imposed in 2019, when Venezuela’s economy was already in shambles.
But a Gonzalez victory could change that – especially if the United States lifts its sanctions to welcome the democratic regime. Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves. If elected, Gonzalez aims to make Venezuela “the energy hub of the Americas”.
Expected geopolitical consequences
On the international front, the outcome of the vote is expected to be felt across the Americas — including the United States — in the form of migration. As Venezuela’s economy has disintegrated, some eight million Venezuelans have already fled their country, many of them scattered across South America.
A recent survey by Venezuelan firm ORC Consultores found that more than 18% of respondents plan to migrate from the country by the end of the year if Maduro wins.
On the other hand, a victory for Gonzalez and the democratic opposition would be a historic event, swinging the geopolitical pendulum in Latin America and beyond.
The Maduro government is a strong ally of China, Iran and Russia. Less than 1,400 miles from Miami, Caracas is often touted as a bridge to Russian President Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Washington’s backyard. Another regional ally, Cuba, is currently receiving free shipments of Venezuelan oil to support its industries.
Under Maduro, Venezuela has also become increasingly isolated, abandoning regional forums such as the Organization of American States, and its membership in Mercosur, Latin America’s largest economic union, has been suspended.
Mr. Gonzalez, a 20th-century diplomat who lived in Algiers, Brussels and Buenos Aires and speaks English and French in addition to his native Spanish, is expected to reach out to democratic governments in the region, including Washington, and work to rebuild international ties. He also plans to foster ties with multilateral organizations like the I.M.F., the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank to bring in much-needed money to support the economy, at least in the short term, according to the opposition’s economic platform.
Currently, most state institutions, such as the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office, are in the hands of regime supporters — but Gonzalez has said he intends to depoliticize those positions and free political prisoners. In an interview earlier this year with CNN the candidate said he wants to “reinstitutionalize” the Venezuelan state after 20 years of economic and social collapse.
And that is, perhaps, the biggest bet in Sunday’s elections.
The past few years have been described as a crisis for democracy, from Brexit to the rise of neo-fascism in Europe; from the erosion of democracies in India, Turkey, the Philippines and across the global south, to the rise of Donald Trump as US president and now his bid for re-election.
But a new dawn in Caracas would be proof to those who do not appreciate Democracy that it is still attractive enough.
Source: CNN Brasil
Bruce Belcher is a seasoned author with over 5 years of experience in world news. He writes for online news websites and provides in-depth analysis on the world stock market. Bruce is known for his insightful perspectives and commitment to keeping the public informed.
