Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez announced on July 13 that Nicolás Maduro’s government would not allow the European Union Observation Mission to enter the country to monitor the 2024 presidential elections. The normally moderate Rodríguez launched a tirade during one legislature, saying, “We don’t have time to consider the motion.” I’ll tell you straight, Josep Borrell [High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy]As long as we are the representatives of the Venezuelan state, you will not come. No mission will come here from Europe.”
After careful attention to cultivating relations with Europe in recent years, Rodríguez reacted to the European Parliament’s statement on the political situation in Venezuela. On July 12, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to condemn the ban from public office of María Corina Machado, the opposition leader who leads all opinion polls for the opposition primaries, reiterating its “concern” at the development the Venezuelan party expressed regime and demanded the release of 280 political prisoners.
In recent months, Maduro and Rodríguez’s more forgiving attitude and willingness to engage in dialogue with their opponents has cooled. The Chavista delegation, initially willing to sit down at the negotiating table with the opposition in Mexico, now refuses to cooperate with the anti-Chavista leaders. The Venezuelan President has made any concession conditional on the release of businessman Alex Saab, who has been jailed in the US for money laundering. He also calls for the sanctions imposed by the US, Canada and the EU to be lifted.
Fears have grown among the opposition in recent days that the country’s heavily Chavista-leaning Supreme Court could issue a ruling allowing the primary election to be organized but forcing the opposition to deal with an entirely new body National Electoral Council (CNE), which has not yet been appointed. This decision would not be in favor of the opposition, which had already decided to hold the primary without government support after the previous CNE policy was withdrawn. A replacement dictated by the Chavista would in all likelihood lead to new divisions within the opposition leadership.
The previous CNE policy was relatively neutral and the result of a political agreement with the opposition in 2021, but it unilaterally resigned before the National Assembly a few weeks ago without issuing an official statement. The rectors of the opposition universities were also forced to resign against their will shortly after the opposition electoral commission asked them to help organize the primaries.
On July 12, a debate was held at the Andrés Bello Catholic University between the ten candidates in the primary elections organized by the Unity Platform through its Electoral Commission, attended by members of the public, including Venezuelans leaving Venezuela in search of opportunities elsewhere had. In a final address to the press, Machado refused to take her fellow candidates’ hands to signal victory.
Although the Chavista elite generally avoid naming Machado, there is clear concern about the rapidly growing popularity of the opposition’s most intransigent and anti-Communist figure. According to analysts like Felix Seijas of Delphos, that popularity has “doubled in just over a month, giving her twice as many close followers who are very committed to voting.”
Machado’s rise has forced a government struggling in the polls and struggling with the economy to use all the forces at its disposal to eliminate them. But Machado has stated that her candidacy will last “to the end” and that she will never comply with measures taken by Chavista institutions.
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