Nicolás Maduro is sworn in this Friday as president until 2031 before a very kind National Assembly (AN) and with a minimal and testimonial presence of international delegations. Six years is an eternity in the region and much more in a Venezuela that accumulates 12 years of an internal conflict with ups and downs that make this January 10 something more than an institutional anniversary: it is a political event that reactivates the confrontation with intensity and tests the strength of madurismo in the face of pressure that exceeds the borders of that country.
The vespers were predictably electrifying. The cities once again became territories of dispute and The State exhibited, once again, its explicit power and also veiled with intimidation. With the echo of the demonstrations for and against Maduro, the question floats in the Caracas air about what will happen in the AN and, especially, “the day after” as of January 10. Analysts are inclined to estimate that the self-call “worker president“controls the threads of the situation by virtue of what he himself calls the “perfect fusion” between the Government, the Armed Forces and the Police.
The swearing-in rite could, however, be altered with the landing of Edmundo González Urrutia to claim the right to begin his presidency for having won the elections, as he often repeats, by 30 points. That ideal scenario for the opposition It would have the characteristics of a disruptive miracle, capable of unleashing social energies superior to those that exist. The media expectation of a return of religious overtones, that of a leader who comes down from heaven to restore a lost order, did not correspond in the last hours to the true relationship of forces. Maria Corina Machadothe designer of the opposition’s roadmap, has bet on the political capital accumulated in the last two years. His letter could only succeed if the Armed Forces are divided.
Wear and frustration
“See you soon in Caracas”said González Urrutia this last Thursday in the Dominican Republic. The meaning of “soon” in the current situation is ambiguous and the possibility of a new frustration of anti-maturism was latent. The Minister of the Interior and Justice, Diosdado Cabello, warned that the opposition candidate will be arrested if he dares to set foot on Venezuelan soil. He also said that he could carry out a mock swearing-in outside the country.
Political scientist Pablo Andrés Quintero told the digital magazine ‘Tal Cual’ that the Government “is playing to physical and emotional exhaustion” of his adversaries. Madurismo, maintains Rafael Uzcátegui, author of ‘Rebellion beyond the left. A post-ideological approach to the democratic transition in Venezuela’, “seems condemn the Venezuelan population to rebellion. Or forced migration. We will see, in the coming weeks, which of the alternatives, or some hybrid variant, prevails.” For the moment, those who reject Maduro have set a limit of expression: they do not want to risk their lives. The punitive threat has its effects .
Maduro already contemplates that González Urrutia will remain outside the country to be a “Guaidó 2.0”alluding to the deputy who in January 2019 proclaimed himself “acting president“with the support of the Donald Trump Administration, part of the European Union (EU) and Latin America and that, after several attempts to destabilize the Miraflores Palace, reduced its capacity to attract people to insignificance.
The Trump factor
The “day after” the modest splendor in the AN is associated with what will happen in USA after Trump’s return to the White House. González Urrutia has seen himself in Washington with the future National Security Advisor, Michael Waltz. The shared photo allows us to infer a special interest of the Republican magnate in the Venezuelan issue. After expressing his unspeakable dreams in relation to the Panama Canal, Greenland and Canada, Trump will have to establish his position on Venezuela and the unusual, some analysts suggest, can become common sense for the billionaire.
During the 2017 crisis, in the midst of more than 100 deaths in the streets, Maduro convened a Constituent Convention that never drafted a Magna Carta: it only sought to function as a counterpower to an AN that was in opposition hands. Now, Maduro wants to reform the Constitution. He said that his first decree will seek to promote these changes to “clearly define the development model for the next 30 years” and generate new regulations to “stand up to” “violent” actions that could be carried out by an opposition with which, Maduro said, it has been “benevolent.”
The day of January 10 finds Maduro facing evidence: the region has turned its back or it is represented only by its ambassadors, as in the case of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Delegations arrived from China, Russia, Iran and Türkiye that in no case included high-level political figures. But Maduro had at least one joy. The presence of the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Haitham Al Ghais. “We are here to support the Government. Being with you here in Venezuela is an important part for us,” he said. The Maduro decade showed an average price of crude oil barrel highest of all previous presidential periods in Venezuela, even above the average price in times of Hugo Chavezwith the exceptional months of 2008, when it reached 120 dollars in international markets. Those benefits hang by a thread. If North American sanctions return to the ring, the Venezuelan economy may face storms that the Government has considered over.
