“Peace or War.” With one week to go before Venezuela’s presidential election, Nicolás Maduro is raising his voice. It must be said that after twenty-five years in power, Chavismo was never threatened by the opposition. Most polls show retired ambassador Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who was unknown to the public four months ago, with nearly 60% of the vote and at least 30 points ahead of the outgoing president for his third six-year term.
“On July 28, the future of Venezuela will be decided for the next fifty years, whether it will become a Venezuela of peace or a Venezuela of chaos, crippled by violence and conflict.” Maduro told supporters during a rally in Madurin, east of the country, on Saturday, July 20. For a week, the Venezuelan leader has resorted to increasingly threatening rhetoric. “fratricidal civil war”, threatened by a “Bloodbath”, If his people have erred in electing an opposition party — whose union appeals to a spectrum wide enough to go from communists to some who can be described as far-right — they blame him at every turn. “Fascists”.
Popularity about Edmundo González
The popular success of this opposition, which has no real ideological backbone – other than a strong desire for change – is not due to the personality of its candidate, who has campaigned faithfully for months to topple the government: María Corina Machado. The former deputy, 56 and formerly close to the Bush administration’s “hawks,” has long stood out from other dissidents with his extreme stances, calling for continued jailing of Maduro and his team. But this conservative, highly economic liberal has muted his right-wing ideas for more than a year and is now in exile in Miami, taking advantage of the vacuum left by former opposition leader and interim president Juan Guaidó.
Thanks to her soft talk, which focused more on the necessary unity of the Savista opposition than on a real plan for the country, María Corina Machado crushed her opponents by collecting more than 90% of the vote in the opposition primaries in the fall of 2023. . At the same time an agreement was concluded in Barbados with the government to guarantee the holding of elections. “Free and fair”, He was later declared ineligible by the election authorities. A few months ago, the Supreme Court found the man – who is known to be close to power – allegedly guilty of administrative fraud when he was a deputy in charge about ten years ago.
By blocking his candidacy, and after a few, breaking the growing movement within the opposition, plunging its leaders back into electoral boycotts, blocking Nicolás Maduro from 2018 has had no other effect. rather than establishing the latter’s unchallenged power. But he took a wrong turn. Part of the international community condemned this approach, particularly left-wing leaders such as Colombia’s Gustavo Pedro and Brazil’s Lula. María Corina Machado did not fall into the trap: she was able to transfer her popularity to Edmundo González, and was not considered a concern. Since the spring, she has been criss-crossing the country on foot or by car — she is banned from flying — promising Venezuelans a vote that will see her win, and end Chavismo. Wherever he goes, he unleashes crowds, as former President Hugo Chávez did in his time when he came to power in 1999.
Total uncertainty over the outcome of the polls
For its part, the presidential camp denies the electoral dynamics of the opposition and shows a grim certainty about its future victory. The head of state’s top lieutenants, notably Jorge Rodríguez, president of the National Assembly, and Diosto Cabello, the ruling party’s No. 2, dispute the law’s validity. “Personal Studies” – Biased influences – This makes them fail, and counters them with other studies that promise an inversely proportional balance of power. Indeed, the repression against the teams of Machado and Gonzalez still reflects a certain fever: In an interview with a Spanish newspaper El Pies This Sunday, July 21, María Corina Machado counts 24 people are in jail and 72 have been arrested in the last two weeks of campaigning.
There is complete uncertainty about the outcome of the referendum. In the opposition, the most optimistic are beginning to believe in victory, while the most skeptical fear last-minute manipulation – which can range from invalidating the candidacy of Edmundo González to canceling the election altogether under the pretext of national security imperatives. –, or fraud on election day. Many principals are working behind the scenes to avoid any slippage after the declaration of results. Brasilia and Bogotá proposed an agreement that would allow for a peaceful transition in the event of an opposition victory and prevent any repression in the opposite case. Neither party signed it. The US will negotiate directly with Nicolás Maduro, according to the person involved, who wants to see the lifting of sanctions against Venezuelan oil since 2019.
On the streets of Caracas, we like to believe that the military will decide. In Venezuela, Chávez has been the glue of power since he put the military in charge of the country’s main institutions and key sectors. His successor promised that the armed forces would be on Saturday 13 July “Anti-Imperial”, “Anti-Oligarchic” And “Deep Chavista”. Maria Corina Machado It assures its part that “Their eyes light up in the face of the imminence of a profound change and reunification with their families.” Like much of the Venezuelan population, he wants to believe that the 7 million people who have fled since 2015 have relatives. They would watch from afar as they voted: very few of them, fewer than 70,000, were allowed to vote the following Sunday.
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