Venezuela is experiencing days of increasing political tension and not even the electoral agreement signed in Barbados has managed to bring about a period of harmony between the government and the extremist part of the rightwing opposition, united in the Democratic Unity Platform (PUD) coalition.
Because the holding of primaries by opponents and the victory of the ultraliberal Maria Corina Machado triggered a series of provocations and exchanges of accusations, which were even accompanied by the US threat to lift the recent easing of sanctions against the country’s oil industry.
On the one hand, the government of President Nicolás Maduro and other parts of the opposition accuse the PUD of manipulating the October 22 consultation. In addition, according to the Chavista delegation that attended the dialogues in Barbados, the primaries would violate the signed agreements as they did not respect the criteria set out in the document, due to the opposition’s refusal of technical support and scrutiny by the National Electoral Council (CNE). ).
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The voting, carried out entirely manually and the lack of adequate structures, which was criticized even by the organizers, became a judicial matter when the Supreme Court of Venezuela ordered this Monday (30) that opponents should hand over all voting protocols to the court. On the same day, the president and vice president of the socalled “National Primary Commission,” the group responsible for organizing the vote, were summoned to testify before prosecutors after being accused of “usurping electoral functions and identities, money laundering and gang formation.”
The PUD and the winning candidate in the primaries are trying to exploit the vote to gain more support from the United States and to secure some legitimacy among the population, since the last national election in which Maria Corina Machado took part was in 2010 took place when she was elected deputy to the country’s National Assembly. The aim of the consultation was to determine a unified opposition presidential candidacy for the Venezuelan presidential election, scheduled to take place in the second half of 2024.
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In his first speech after the results, Machado focused on “convincing the international community of the importance of the fight against Maduro” and mentioned few proposals or even campaign strategies, since a disqualification by the Comptroller General of the Republic in 2015 would prevent this dissuading her from running for president in 2024.
Furthermore, her opponent’s stance remains confrontational towards Chavismo and she even said in a press conference that President Nicolás Maduro “would not dare” take part in a debate with her. Machado, a historical figure in the most reactionary parts of the Venezuelan opposition, is betting on a massive privatization program to compete with the government in a possible election campaign and constantly talks about “wiping out” socialism in Venezuela.
“What is certain is that with the primaries she is positioning herself as the sole representative of the opposition, as a kind of second Juan Guaidó,” says Carlos Dürich. In an interview with Brazil actuallythe political analyst and member of the Venezuelan communications collective Tatuy TV, explains that the opponent is already behaving like a presidential candidate, but is facing problems because the process that selected her “was full of irregularities from start to finish.”
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“This selfdeclaration does not have much impact since there is no possibility of auditing the primary process since there were no observers or support from the CNE,” he explains.
Dispute over numbers goes to court
The lack of transparency cited by Dürich is one of the main arguments used by the government and other parts of the opposition to accuse the PUD of rigging the primaries. According to the election organizing committee, more than 2.5 million people took part in the election and Machado would have been elected with more than 92% of the vote.
The data was disputed by the president of the legislature, Chavista deputy Jorge Rodríguez, who cited the government’s “own count” and claimed that turnout was 598,350 voters. According to CNE data, around 21 million Venezuelans were eligible to vote in the primary elections.
“What happened on Sunday was not an election, it was a farce. An election has elements that must be respected so that the vote can be verifiable, fair and free. What happened on Sunday cannot be verified,” the MP said.
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The government’s accusations reached the prosecutor’s office days later and were transformed into formal summonses this Monday, when the president of the “National Primary Commission,” Jesús Maria Casal, and the vice president, Mildred Camero, appeared at the deputy’s headquarters in Caracas to give testimony.
In addition, through an appeal by opposition deputy José Brito, part of the Democratic Alliance coalition that competes with the PUD, the Supreme Electoral Court annulled the results of the primaries and ordered the organizers to provide all the materials used to determine the primaries Results. Results.
Maria Corina, on the other hand, continues to classify herself as a “politically persecuted person” and describes the government as an “authoritarian regime”. According to analysts, Machado’s victory in the primaries ultimately posed a threat to the stability of the agreements signed in Barbados, as it is not clear whether the opponent will support the document or use force to reverse his disqualification.
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“Maria Corina’s political bloc has always been associated with extremism based on uprisings, such as the coup against former President Hugo Chávez in 2002 and the Guarimbas of 2014 and 2017. So what seems to happen when “If their disqualification is not reversed, it is a scenario of tension and possibly rebellion,” says Dürich.
The USA is threatening Venezuela
The scenario became even more complex after the US threatened not to extend the easing of the blockade on Venezuelan oil if Maria Corina continued to be prevented from running for president. Following the agreement signed in Barbados, Washington issued general licenses that, in practice, temporarily suspended some sanctions against the Venezuelan energy sector and allowed the country to return to the international market.
However, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said shortly after the primary that unless Machado’s disqualification was overturned, licenses would not be renewed within the sixmonth deadline set by the Treasury Department as a limit.
The threats were poorly received by Caracas, which demanded compliance with national laws and agreements signed with the opposition. “When they said what they said, they expressed great ignorance about how Venezuela’s legal system and constitution work. You should already know that Venezuela does not accept pressure, blackmail, bribery and interference from power or any other country,” replied Jorge Rodríguez.
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“Blinken’s statements show that there is no hegemony in the White House over what to do with the Venezuelan issue,” says Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein. He is a former Venezuelan diplomat and doctor of political science Brazil actually the hypothesis that the US, while publicly defending a narrative in support of Machado, is more interested in protecting its own interests.
“There is an item that they now call the ‘red line’ which was about disqualifications, but the disqualifications are not in the Barbados Accords, they were omitted, which clearly shows that the US is in line with their interests work.” and not out of consideration for the interests of the Venezuelan opposition, they have already used them and now they are discarding them, as they always do,” he explains.
Gelfenstein also explains that the war in Ukraine has increased the need for Washington to look for new sources of fuel as imports of Russian goods have been disrupted. Through September, before sanctions were suspended, Venezuela produced between 700,000 and 800,000 barrels of oil per day, according to OPEC data.
“It is not that President Joe Biden figured out overnight that Venezuela can be a friendly country, or that he believes that President Maduro is getting along well and that the two countries can have good relations despite their differences. No, it is not. “The situation is a response to the serious problem that Washington has with regard to oil and the domestic political situation, as the US presidential elections take place next year,” he says.
Editing: Leandro Melito
