Photograph Source: Eneas De Troya – CC BY 2.0
Caracas.
On 28 July, the people of Venezeula will go to the polls to conduct the sixth presidential election since the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution. The two previous elections (2013 and 2018) were won by Nicolás Maduro Moros, the incumbent president. Maduro is running for a third term that will begin in 2025 and run for six years. He is leading a vast alliance of left and democratic parties that have united to defend the Bolivarian revolution, which has been ongoing for almost twenty-five years. Maduro has had to lead both Venezuela and the Bolivarian revolutionary process since the death of Hugo Chávez, the legendary figure who broke the oligarchy’s stranglehold on Venezuela’s politics, and since the collapse of oil prices in 2015 as well as the increased suffocation by the United States to destroy the Bolivarian agenda. No doubt, Maduro has one of the toughtest jobs on the planet, having to succeed the charismatic Chávez and to steer the ship in the turbulent waters created by the United States. By all accounts, Maduro will prevail on Sunday, largely because of the abominable character of the opposition.
The Far-Right’s Terrible Candidate
Maduro faces Edmundo González Urrutia, the candidate of the far-right. González is being portrayed as a grandfatherly figure, although he is only thirteen years older than Maduro (born in 1962, while González was born in 1949). This image of González as an abuela (grandfather) masks his more ferocious political project and his background. González leads the Unity Platform, which had been created in 2021 by Juan Guaidó; it is worth recalling that Guaidó was the politician plucked from obscurity by the United States to become a pretender president in 2019 (following a blueprint that had succeeded for the United States in Ukraine when the United States government places Arseniy Petrovych Yatsenyuk into the prime minister’s office in Ukraine). The Unity Platform, or PU in its Spanish acronym, brings together the politicians of the far-right of a special kind that had been funded and trained by the United States (such as María Corina Machado and Leopoldo López). Privately, members of the PU say that they cannot win an election in Venezuela; despite the privations caused by the US-imposed sanctions, the grip of Chavismo on the masses is indelible. That is why people like Corina Machado and López lean on the United States to bring its arsenal to bear against Venezuela, a treasonous position that has them barred from the electoral process.
That is why PU has selected González to be its candidate, but during the campaign there has been no real alternative project to Chavismo put forward by González or by his surrogates. Indeed, their only claim is that they are not Maduro and that they would be able to improve the economy by surrendering to the US demands. González has largely obscured his own past, which has been buried behind claims that he was merely a diplomat. Those who remember his tenure as an embassy official in El Salvador have different things to say about this grandfatherly figure. In July 1981, González was dispatched to the Venezuelan embassy in El Salvador, where he worked directly under Ambassador Leopoldo Castillo. During his time, there – Colombian diplomat María Catalina Restrepo Pinzón Londoño reports – he worked with the death squads against the Sandinista guerrillas (FSLN). One of these guerrilla leaders, Nadia Díaz, recalls in her autobiography (Nunca estuve sola, 1988) that when she was in prison there were Venezuelan men amongst her torturers. Díaz does not say that González directly tortured her, but certainly he was amongst those who participated in the campaign against the FSLN. Such is the character of the ‘grandfatherly’ figure who is the candidate of the far-right against Maduro.
The Weight of the Sanctions
A study in the Washington Post finds that the United States government is currently enforcing illegal, unilateral sanctions against a third of the countries in the world, with 60% of the poorer nations under sanction. These US sanctions, first applied in 2005 to overthrow the government of Hugo Chávez, define the Venezuelan economy. At one time, the Venezuelan state relied upon the oil revenues for 90% of its own finances. In mid-2014, the oil boom ended with the collapse of oil prices, which was amplified by the increased US sanctions and threats of armed attack against Venezuela. The impact of secondary sanctions against financial institutions and shipping companies dried up Venezuela’s revenues and pushed the state to emergency measures in order to maintain the basic requirements of the Bolivarian project.
During several visits between 2014 and 2024, I have been struck both by the vicious impact of the sanctions and by the political mobilisation of the Maduro government to explain the situation to the people. The privations caused enormous distress, which led to decreased nutritional intake and to mass migration. I was in Caracas in February 2021 when UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan gave a press conference on the impact of the sanctions. Her findings in a press conference were plainly stated: ‘Lack of necessary machinery, spare parts, electricity, water, fuel, gas, food and medicine, growing insufficiency of qualified workers many of whom have left the country for better economic opportunities, in particular medical personnel, engineers, teachers, professors, judges and policemen, has enormous impact over all categories of human rights, including the rights to life, to food, to health and to development’. The situation since 2021 has improved, largely due to the October 2023 Barbados Agreement signed between the Venezuelan government and the opposition, and by the entry of other countries (such as China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey) to trade with Venezuela. But the road ahead is difficult and long.
The sanctions define this election. If they are seen as fair, then the Barbados Agreement might lead to the loosening of the sanctions by the US. The United States would like more Venezuelan oil to get into the market not to help the Venezuelan people, but to provide energy to Europe given the sanctions on Russia. There are far too many contradictions in play here. The US will certainly deny the legitimacy of the elections if Maduro wins, and allow the sanctions to prevent Venezuelan oil to provide relief to the Europeans. During the 2020 presidential elections, sanctions played the leading role. They continue to be the main issue on the ballot.
Maduro’s campaign rallies have been effusive. The Chavistas cheer him, their red shirts sparkling with sweat under the warm Venezuelan skies. We will prevail, says the former bus driver, whose humourous speeches are defiant. There is no evasion here. Maduro is clear: Venezuela is being put to the test. Will the Venezuelan people continue the Bolivarian process or will they u-turn to the terrible past of the oligarchy?
