Venezuela measures the desire for change at the polls

Venezuela goes to the polls this Sunday in the midst of a great historical urgency, as if the country were at a crossroads. The permanence in power of Chavismo, which has ruled the destiny of the nation for 25 years, is in question for this presidential election, the sixth since Hugo Chavez’s irruption in 1998. In the Miraflores Palace, the tropical neo-baroque style seat of the government, full of paintings and busts of Simón Bolívar and Chávez himself, they do not quite understand how this situation has reached its limit. In its corridors, stupefaction prevails. A leader of the PSUV, the ruling party, says: “A correct risk analysis was not made.” President Nicolás Maduro and his advisors, all of them experienced in high voltage electoral processes, thought a couple of months ago that they had everything under control. It was a mirage.

They did not take into account that the opposition, after a series of defeats and internal conflicts, had also learned along the way. The confirmation in January of this year of the disqualification of María Corina Machado, the visible face of the anti-Chavistas, the name that in the polls was ahead of Maduro, could have put an end to the threat, clearing the way for Chavismo. However, Machado gave her place to Edmundo González, an unknown 74-year-old diplomat who, at this point in his life, had planned to spend his evenings reading on the sofa of his house, while watching the macaws crossing the sky of Caracas through the window. But then, Machado tapped him on the shoulder and told him that this was his time, his moment and, together, they set out to travel across Venezuela, from one end to the other. Machado has taken his hand and raised it in long avenues of provincial cities. He, a Christian Democrat; she, a pragmatic liberal. Maduro has made a similar itinerary surrounded by the hardest core of Chavismo, which insists that the worst years of economic crisis are over and that only his continuity guarantees the political and social peace of the country.

At this point, only one can win. Maduro or Edmundo, Edmundo or Maduro. The numbers from the most reliable pollsters list the opposition candidate as the winner, some of them with a large margin of difference. Some analysts are skeptical of the polls, but still predict a victory for González. Chavismo has handled its own surveys that warned it of its moment of weakness, after a quarter of a century in power with a lot of wear and tear. A part of the electorate that has been loyal during this time has become disenchanted, and even the most orthodox Chavistas —10% of them, according to a poll— are considering the possibility for change. Maduro has recognized in his rallies his mistakes and his lack of speed in detecting in the very heart of his government a case of corruption of his Minister of Oil, Tareck El Aissami, estimated at more than $3 billion. However, he asks for a vote of confidence with the argument of the sustained growth of the economy since 2021 (this year, the GDP will grow by 4%) and the threat that his defeat would unleash an armed conflict. His inner circle admits they did not expect to face numbers like these for González, but according to their unpublished measurements, Maduro reaches the final stretch with an eight-point lead.

This has not prevented Chavismo from spreading the feeling that a defeat is a real possibility, something that until a few months ago seemed an impossibility. The Bolivarian revolution controls all the institutions, all the levers of power. For the most radical Chavistas, like Diosdado Cabello, the party’s vice president, leaving now would be a betrayal of Chávez’s ideals, a revolutionary claudication. Although the numbers are not in their favor, this possibility does not fit within their mental framework. This thesis is shared by others close to Maduro, such as Jorge Rodríguez, his main political operator, who argues that a victory for González would mean “the arrival of fascism, a form of U.S. invasion.” On the other side, there is a more moderate and somewhat more democratically inclined Chavismo, representing a younger generation that has studied abroad, speaks foreign languages, and wears less el chandal. The former see the latter as spoiled, unkempt, soft children who have not carried a rifle on their shoulders or protested against right-wing governments in the 80s. However, this Chavismo 2.0 opts to normalize the country’s political life and accept alternation, as in other countries in the region. This would even involve being in opposition and refounding the movement from there. Although the veterans hold the power and the final say, the internal debate has ignited like never before.

The entire Venezuelan electoral system is under scrutiny. The National Electoral Council (CNE), the arbiter of these elections, is controlled by Chavismo with a simple majority of rectors. It is headed by Elvis Amoroso, someone very close to Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, who has shown signs of bias during the campaign. Can the results of this Sunday’s elections be altered? It seems difficult. With the support of opposition parties, Chavismo devised an automated voting system to prevent fraud. At that time, they feared the establishment that had governed until then would steal from them. Now, this tool secures what can happen today: the voting machines and printed ballots are reliable. Where the contest is skewed in favor of the government is in everything surrounding the electoral process. Maduro has monopolized all the minutes on radio and television, his image is everywhere. With public money, a fictionalized five-episode series with a Hollywood-style finish has been produced. On Thursday night, drones filled the Caracas sky, drawing his name in the starry sky.

Additionally, Chavismo has a geolocated system with the addresses of all public employees and their families. They will know whether they go out to vote or not. Activists of the movement spread the idea in the neighborhoods that voting for the opposition could cost them social aid and marginalize them when it comes to finding work. This is why, at the end of his campaign, González emphasized this message: “The vote is secret; no one will know who you voted for.” Analysts like Luis Vicente León argue that this mobilization could be enough for Maduro to secure the votes that would allow him to remain in power for another six years, until 2030. “Foreign correspondents who have been visiting my house these days have only two possibilities in their mind: either Edmundo wins, or fraud has been committed. And no, people. Numerically, with all these electoral maneuvers, Maduro could also win,” explains León.

In Caracas, the last few hours have become tense. The anticipation of the possibility of political change after 25 years of Chavismo has altered the life of Venezuela’s capital. On the streets, eight out of 10 people say they are hoping for that change — according to polls —, though from the propaganda everywhere, it seems like Maduro is the only candidate in these elections. Gustavo Mendoza, a 64-year-old mechanic turned taxi driver, is one of those eight hoping for a new government. “I want change for the better; I want democracy as it should be, with autonomous powers, where the government respects and we don’t always live with so much anxiety,” he says while waiting for passengers under a downpour in a central area of Caracas. In Mendoza’s house they have already decided to go to vote on Sunday before dawn. In the two decades under Chavismo, he says, the idea he had of what his family would be like has vanished. His children — aged between 33 and 22 — haven’t migrated but have grown up and still live at home, unable to become independent. They are university graduates and are either unemployed or have salaries that are not enough for daily needs. He couldn’t continue paying for his youngest daughter’s education. He has lived for years with a hip condition that causes him to limp and hasn’t been able to get surgery. “These years have changed my life a lot, but for the worse. Now I hope for better times.”

Venezuelans vote with the police in the streets and in the more than 15.700 voting points (with 30.026 polling stations) opened throughout the country. In addition to the military uniformed members of Plan República, police forces were activated, an atypical measure. Venezuela usually quarantines its civilian public security officers during this process and leaves the protection in the hands of the Armed Forces, including the Bolivarian Militia. María De Freitas noticed this at her polling station, a school in central Caracas. She says there were no issues with the process, except for the presence of police officers alongside the Plan República personnel, who are responsible for guarding the electoral material and are the only ones supposed to be inside the voting centers.

For the past few weeks, Chavismo has been pushing a narrative about supposed opposition plans to create disturbances during the elections and boycott the process. This has led to a deployment of 380,000 military and police officers for the election, plus military reserves. “To attend to situations of reestablishment and control of public order,” according to Interior and Defense authorities. Incidents during the campaign have gained much traction on social media, but are minimal when looking at the whole picture, as pointed out by Delsa Solórzano, a leader of the Plataforma Unitaria and designated national observer for the coalition supporting Edmundo González Urrutia’s candidacy. Notably, the infamous “colectivos,” Chavismo’s paramilitary-formed armed squads that used to harass opposition protesters, have been conspicuously absent.

For Analesly Silva, 29, the elections are already won by the opposition. She says this while parked on her motorcycle on the highway where dozens of people stopped to watch the campaign closing of González’s candidacy, accompanied, of course, by Machado. These were people who didn’t march but stopped during their journey. Some waved flags and shared their thoughts: “I feel so much emotion seeing this. God can’t fail us this time,” said one woman. “This is won, unless fraud occurs,” replied Analesly, a teacher who works for travel and tips for a delivery app. “I have a degree but don’t practice because a teacher’s salary is worthless. If things don’t change, I have everything ready to leave for Spain in January.”

Many believe that this Sunday is just the beginning of a major political process. The real importance starts the next day, Monday. If Maduro wins, he will need to demonstrate transparency for the rest of the world to recognize him and help Venezuela shed its status as an international pariah. Lifting sanctions is crucial for the country’s economy. The president has said he will seek a political agreement and understanding with the opposition. This has also been demanded by presidents of ideologically aligned neighboring countries, such as Gustavo Petro, Lula Da Silva, and Gabriel Boric. The leaders of Colombia, Brazil, and Chile tried to get him to sign a document accepting the results up until the week before the election. They assured him that with this commitment, signed by both him and González, they could defend Maduro in the eyes of the world, which would have no choice but to recognize him as a democratic president rather than the authoritarian one he is currently perceived as. However, the volatility of the situation led Maduro to ignore that draft.

The most uncertain scenario opens up in the case of an opposition victory. From that point on, the unknown. González and Machado have proposed a calm transition, without traumas or legal persecutions. The architects of this possible transition are contemplating the possibility of an amnesty for Chavista leaders, as many of them have international arrest warrants or are wanted by the DEA. According to sources within the ruling party, Chavismo would want this transition to be guaranteed by the military, with one unwavering condition, a red line: Machado cannot be part of the government under any circumstances. There would be practically six months of coexistence between the outgoing president, Maduro, and the incoming one, González, until January 10th. González would be the new authority in an entirely Chavista world, surrounded by red shirts and effigies of Chávez. Through the large windows of Miraflores, he would no longer see blue birds but the presidential guard stationed at the entrance. His fate as a serene reader of classics or the president of a tumultuous nation begin to be decided this Sunday.

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