By Michael McCarthy

In the wake of a sham Presidential election event, Venezuela’s complex crisis appears to be deepening. Marked by electoral authorities’ apocryphal claims of a government victory, Maduro’s iron-fisted post-election crackdown against the opposition, and thus far unsuccessful efforts at international mediation from Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the ongoing electoral episode has placed the government and opposition in an increasingly bitter conflict.

Stuck in between stands the population, a large portion of which may migrate unless hope for political change can be revitalized. The region should brace itself for a new movement of Venezuelans abroad.   

The opposition coalition continues to press its case. The opposition is led by María Corina Machado, the winner of open primaries who was forced to endorse Edmundo González Urrutia after the government-controlled courts banned her candidacy. Their election witnesses documented a landslide victory — 67% to 31% for González Urrutia. Due to both the total lack of transparency by the electoral authorities (disaggregated precinct-level data has still not been published though that was the norm in previous Maduro-era elections) and the validity of election witness tally sheets consolidated by the González Urrutia campaign, opposition claims have resonated widely. The Biden administration and multiple Latin American governments recognized González Urrutia as the winner of the election, while even historical Left-wing allies of the chavista political movement, such as former President of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, cast serious doubts on Maduro´s claim to victory.

Privately, numerous pro-government voices have admitted they cannot attest to the credibility of the official results, which state that Maduro won with 51% of the vote, a telling admission that no independent checks on executive power grabs exist. However, despite Maduro´s most acute crisis of legitimacy yet, no highly influential ruling party official or strategic international ally (Bolivia, China, Cuba, Russia) has publicly aired such concerns. Maduro seems more influenced by the hard line elements in his government and, amid his intransigence toward calls for releasing credible electoral data, his government seems headed for greater international isolation. Meanwhile, the opposition — though strengthened by its impressive organizational effort to retrieve over 80% of the tally sheets from voting centers — is struggling to capitalize on its status as the electoral majority.

The Biden administration is losing patience with the situation. Following a period of pre-election diplomatic engagement with Maduro, Washington is strongly considering the imposition of new individual sanctions against government authorities involved in engineering the fraudulent election results and responsible for recent human rights violations. According to Venezuelan human rights groups, Maduro’s security forces have arbitrarily detained over 1,500 persons since the July 28 vote, including activists and leaders from the different opposition coalition partners, as well as one hundred and thirty adolescents. Over 20 demonstrators died amid state repression against post-election protests held to contest the official results.

As this dark post-election period continues to unfold, Maduro not only has a corrupt and ideologically conditioned army but also time on his side. The regime´s cohesion, while lower than in previous moments of chavismo´s 25 years of rule, appears to be sufficiently strong for Maduro to hold power until the new presidential period begins in January 2025. Maduro holding power does not guarantee Venezuela’s stability. Rather, the electoral crisis is likely to translate into weaker than previously forecast economic growth (4% according to Spring 2024 projections by the IMF), a scenario that could, in turn prompt Maduro to panic and forsake the more pragmatic economic policies he’s been pursuing to contain inflation. Indeed, Maduro has never articulated an overarching vision to unify the movement the way Chávez did. While his ongoing use of coercion and repression has helped him secure loyalties among ruling party power brokers, those tools cannot fix the underlying problem of internal political fragmentations, some of which grew more salient during the multi-billion corruption scandal that resulted in Maduro jailing his oil czar Tareck El-Aissami, among others.

Thus, while the return to democracy in Venezuela still seems far off, it is also true that Maduro´s leadership has never been under as much pressure as it is today. His ability to deliver economic gains from the oil sector is likely to decline, with historical investors such as China likely to take a wait-and-see approach and Maduro´s ambition to join the BRICs+ and obtain New Development Bank financing likely to go unfulfilled. If the economy spirals downward, then Maduro will face tougher questions from his own coalition’s strategic players in the military. In this respect, Maduro’s blatant rigging of the vote count opens a new, highly uncertain chapter in chavismo’s already stressful history of losing popular legitimacy.

Over sixty years ago, a previous Venezuelan dictator, Marco Pérez Jíménez, lost power months after holding a fraudulent plebiscite on his rule. A general uprising catalyzed a coup against Pérez Jiménez, which in turn yielded a caretaker transition government that later paved the way for restoring democratic rule. History may not repeat itself, but if one is searching for reasons to believe Maduro has not consolidated power for good, Venezuela’s past has plenty to offer.

Michael McCarthy is President of Caracas Wire, and Adjunct Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University

Edited by Ernesto Castaneda, Director of the Center for Latin America and Latino Studies

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