Throughout his mandate, Nicolás Maduro has overcome large waves of street protests driven by the opposition, especially in 2015, 2017 and 2019, and even an assassination attempt in 2018. And The Chavismo that the newly inaugurated president now embodies believes that what has happened in recent months has been just a new attempt to overthrow him.. Maduro will be president of Venezuela for five more years. Of course, with support, especially international, increasingly diminished. Even among those who years ago could have been closer to Hugo Chávez. “From the political left I tell you that the Government of Nicolás Maduro is a dictatorship”said Chilean President Gabriel Boric the day before an inauguration that he did not attend.
The trigger for these latest protests began after last year’s presidential elections. While the Maduro Government announced its re-election with just over 50% of the votes, the opposition, led by Edmundo González after the disqualification of María Corina Machado, claimed to be the winner. So, unlike in previous elections, international pressure on Maduro was growing up. Former historical allies such as the president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, demanded that the Venezuelan, in order not to increase suspicions, make the minutes public. Maduro promised to do so, but they never showed up. The opposition, for its part, published its own that would demonstrate its victory. The Maduro Government delegitimized them as false.
That unfulfilled commitment to Brazil further distanced Lula da Silva from Maduro’s defense, thus losing what could be one of his main supports not only in America, but also in the rest of the world.. The Brazilian president has always been against foreign interference in Venezuela, betting on dialogue between the Government and the opposition. This happened, for example, with the Barbados Agreements of October 17, 2023, a pact between Maduro and opponents to offer “electoral guarantees” in the 2024 presidential elections and which alleviated the battered Venezuelan economy. Thanks to that signature, some of the sanctions that weighed on the country were lifted. Lula da Silva has always defended this diplomatic route. But after Maduro’s refusal to make the minutes public, his patience faltered.
Beyond the pressure to which Maduro has been under since his electoral victory was proclaimed, Perhaps the biggest blow was dealt to Brazil when at the end of last year it prevented Venezuela from joining the BRICS.the international alternative to the G7. The Venezuelan was confident that his entry into the core of emerging economies would greatly alleviate oppression. If it had entered, it would have shared space with countries like Russia, India, China or Brazil itself. He did manage, however, to obtain the public support of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who defined Venezuela as “one of Russia’s old and reliable partners in Latin America and in the general world.”
The question now is whether this will not be a repeat of what already happened in 2019, although there are significant differences. Then, Juan Guaidó, at that time president of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself “interim president” of Venezuela, arguing that Maduro’s victory in the 2018 elections lacked legitimacy. Guaidó achieved the explicit recognition of 60 countries in the world, his main support being the Government of Donald Trump in the United States.
What happened with Guaidó was the great nonsense. He spent some time calling himself legitimate president but Maduro was still the head of state. In the end, all the countries that had once supported him ended up recognizing that Maduro was what he was, the real president. Not in vain, any type of matter that was wanted to be discussed with Venezuela had to go through the Maduro Government. The other was a fallacy, perhaps a wish. What happens with Edmundo González is different. González and the opposition defend being the true winners of the elections, but no one has proclaimed themselves president. The thing is how long their desires will last, especially now that Maduro has already been inaugurated.
The position of the new Trump Administration will be decisive. And although the American president-elect has supported Edmundo González, whom he recognizes as the winner in the elections, he faces pressure within his country. As published The Wall Street Journal At the end of last year, “oil executives and investors in US bonds” urged Trump to negotiate with Maduro “instead of trying to overthrow him.” With Venezuela, beyond politics, there is always oil. The country leads the world ranking of crude oil reserves.
For the historian and journalist Pablo Stefanoni, the main difference with previous stages “is that, For the first time, Chavismo, in its Madurista version, is going to govern without any electoral legitimacy. And for this, repression has had to be toughened”. “Although from the beginning the Bolivarian regime used the State to perpetuate its power and weaken the opposition, it always maintained a level of electoral legitimacy. The division of the opposition between those who favored participating or abstaining undoubtedly made things easier for them. But this time, the refusal to show the electoral results disaggregated by table gave credibility to the opposition’s complaints of fraud,” Stefanoni continues.
Opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González.
And it is no longer just the issue of legitimacy. The “massive Venezuelan migration” in recent years “put the region on alert,” something that also explains the reaction of the rest of Venezuela’s former allies. The departure of so many people from the country “not only posed problems in the migratory field itself, but also spread the voice of the opposition to the entire region, embodied in ordinary people who simply testify to the failed nature of the Venezuelan model”. For Stefanoni, furthermore, it is obvious that defending Maduro is a problem for the left, not only Latin American but also Spanish. “That socialism once again rhymes with scarcity, repression, militarized power – within the framework of predatory elites – gives an invaluable banner to the new right-wing in the region,” he explains. In any case, he clarifies, “in the left-wing parties in the region there is still little criticism of Maduro. In general, the image of a coup-mongering and interventionist opposition predominates, and Maduro is seen as a lesser evil.. Various sectors of the PT [el Partido de los Trabajadores de Lula da Silva]”For example, they were upset with the official position on Venezuela.”
What has also become clear over the years is that, in a very changing context, Maduro is not Hugo Chávez. “People – Stefanoni considers – are quite fed up with Maduro and the daily deprivations, and also with an ideological discourse disconnected from the real life of the popular majorities.” Sooner or later, the Government, as happened with the Barbados Accords, will have to find a way out of the social and political conflict. According to the historian, author of Has the rebellion turned right?Venezuela should move towards a diplomatic solution, far from foreign interference.
“The best way out – says Pablo Stefanoni – it would undoubtedly be an agreed solution, but that does not seem very likely. The regime [de Maduro] It has been strengthened with a sui generis dollarization of the economy, which brought it closer to the political elites (new and old). But that strength is not replicated in the electoral field. Through repression and taking advantage of society’s fatigue and emigration, the Government has prevented the massive influx to the polls from being transformed into massive mobilizations in defense of the vote. In this framework, the opposition once again focuses on international pressure. But without internal mobilization that does not seem enough and sometimes even turns out to be counterproductive. Nor has there been a break in the Armed Forces, which are a structural part of power. So Maduro today lacks incentives to negotiate, knowing that leaving power will force him to leave the country.”.
An essential part of the solution also involves trying to counteract what former Uruguayan president José Mujica already commented in April 2024. “I learned this: in a situated square, any dissenter is a traitor”he opined.
