Enrique
Krauze

When Venezuelan populists talk about stopping migration from their country by addressing root causes, they are referring to widespread poverty. And they often blame the United States and its policies for this. What these populists do not say is that the actual root cause of poverty has been a lack of democracy and freedom. The Biden administration has the opportunity to correct the populists’ narrative this week — because something extraordinary is happening in Venezuela.

María Corina Machado, a courageous leader with a long history in the opposition, has managed to organize a real movement which, in the upcoming elections, stands to beat the regime that has been in power for a quarter of a century.

Presidential elections are set to take place Sunday. Machado is not on the ballot. Having won 92 percent of the vote in the primary elections to run as a candidate, her bid was invalidated by electoral bodies and the courts. But she is backing Edmundo González, a 74-year-old professor and diplomat whose candidacy, so far, has not been vetoed. The evident outrage at how Machado was treated only strengthened her legitimacy and popularity. Now, Machado and González are campaigning together. Credible polls attest to a new reality: Venezuelans want change.

“Glory to the brave people who threw off the yoke,” reads the first verse of the Venezuelan national anthem. These brave people have become acutely aware, in a very visceral way rather than through statistics, of the brutal reality of their regime. They want families to be reunited and grandmothers to meet their grandchildren, they tell Machado wherever she goes. They long for relief from misery, repression and insecurity. They want freedom and harmony to make way for national reconciliation.
But the statistics, too, are terrifying. In 1998, Venezuela’s GDP per capita was among the highest in Latin America. Today it is lower than that of Haiti. In that same year, the state-owned oil company produced 3.5 million barrels per day. Today it produces 850,000. Infrastructure and services (security, education and health) have more or less collapsed, and are only partially functioning in Caracas, the capital.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy is emigration: Nearly 8 million Venezuelans (25 percent of the population) live scattered across Latin America, North America and Europe. By 2018, a former Chávez minister estimated that more than a quarter of tax revenue over 20 years had been stolen. No one knows what the ratio is today.

Politically, the regime is no longer properly populist. But neither is it leftist, like Chile or Brazil. Venezuela is a political-military dictatorship akin to Russia and Iran — and above all Cuba, its ideological ally. The specific instrument of power has been co-optation and repression — of political parties, candidates, business executives, academics, students and journalists. Separation of powers, freedom of expression, guarantees of individual rights and confidence in the electoral system — all these things have long since disappeared in Venezuela.

Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s anointed successor, has ruled Venezuela since 2013. His early reign was marked by regular mass protests. During one that occurred from March to August 2017, hundreds of thousands of people marched in several cities against Maduro’s disbanding of the National Assembly, the only remaining independent governing institution in Venezuela. Amid the violent repression that followed, which saw more than 120 killed and hundreds wounded, imprisoned and tortured, the protesters called a national referendum. More than 7.5 million people (40 percent of eligible voters, 25 percent of the population) called for a restoration of some constitutional balance.

The referendum was ignored. Maduro called for an election that he clearly rigged. Few foreign governments recognized the resulting National Assembly as legitimate, and it became a rubber-stamp legislature. Maduro had achieved his goal: He had taken over the last truly democratic institution in the country.

For six years, the opposition languished. All of its leaders proved to be failures. And then Machado appeared. “No one can stop this,” she repeatedly says at her rallies. She is banned from leaving the country. Her three children are exiled abroad. The political program of this industrial engineer with liberal convictions, whose father’s firm was seized by Chávez, is important. But more important is her courage and example. She embodies hope.

There are strong suspicions that Maduro and his ruling cadres will never yield power. They will resort to all sorts of subterfuges: disqualifying González, preventing Venezuelans abroad from voting, limiting the conditions for voter registration, designating voting centers in places that are difficult to monitor, manipulating the electronic voting system and coercing voters under threat of withholding social programs. They have jailed members of Machado’s staff.

But the democratic wave is growing. Stymying the people’s will for change may lead to a new round of protests, which will require a new cycle of brutal repression. Knowing the danger, there are sensible sectors of the ruling party (in the governorships and in the army itself) that would agree to a negotiated solution once the elections are over.

A reasonable solution would include the exit of Maduro and his clique from power and from the country, and an agreement to call legitimate general elections. Such elections would result in a new Legislative Assembly that in turn would start rehabilitating other debilitated institutions.

In 1998, Hugo Chávez promised that Venezuela was heading toward the same “sea of happiness” as Cuba. His promise has come true, but the Venezuelan people have decided that they do not like that sea. Instead of “Homeland, socialism or death” (Chávez’s rallying cry), Venezuelans today prefer “Homeland, freedom and life.” I am certain they will win these things for themselves and for their children.

Right now, we must celebrate their efforts — and support them.

Published by The Washington Post on July 24th, 2024.