The Venezuelan strongman lost the election and everyone knows it. He has nothing left to offer but violence and repression. It will be his undoing.
August 2024
On Monday, July 29, the day after Nicolás Maduro attempted to perpetrate the largest electoral fraud in Latin America’s history, Caracas was eerily quiet. But by noon, popular demonstrations had erupted in the capital and across the country. They were not called by the opposition alliance’s national leader, María Corina Machado, or its presidential candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia. They were spontaneous. And their message was clear: Respect the results.
The demonstrations were harshly repressed. It is difficult to determine the exact number of deaths or arrests. According to the human-rights organization Foro Penal, there were at least eleven deaths and 177 arrests on that first day after the stolen election. Tarek William Saab, Venezuela’s attorney general, boasted that the government’s crackdown was far greater. Saab, who has become the face of legal repression in Venezuela, denounced an “attempted electoral sabotage by coup-mongers of the far right” and said that 1,062 people were in jail accused of “terrorist and mercenary actions.”
The next day, opposition leaders Machado and González held a press conference to reveal the true results of the election. Against all odds, the opposition and its election watchers had managed to collect 73.2 percent of the election’s tallies, paper counts printed at each polling station that list the number of votes for every candidate. Machado said, “We have proof of what happened in Venezuela. We did it. At this moment, I am very excited to tell everyone that we have 73.2 percent of the tallies.” According to the tallies, González had won 6,275,182 votes, while Maduro had received only 2,759,256.
More than two weeks after the election, the regime’s National Electoral Council (CNE) still has not presented the evidence to support its claim that Maduro won the election with 51.2 percent of the vote. The opposition, on the other hand, has published 83.5 percent of the tallies on a public website. This exceptional election-monitoring work has cast light on the fraud and presented a huge problem for Maduro’s dictatorship. The credibility of the CNE’s numbers is low and, as time goes by, the national and international perception of Maduro’s massive fraud will only grow firmer.
Why Maduro Is Upset
Of course, Maduro remains in power. No wonder that some think he has already defeated the opposition. But this is a simplistic framing. Much is happening beneath the surface, and the situation is unstable. It is too soon to predict the full consequences of the Venezuelan election.
Maduro, however, is already upset. He miscalculated the political capacity of the opposition, and things did not turn out the way he expected. I can point to three reasons why he is in distress: He lost, González won, and the international community demands the truth.
He lost. One of the founding political pillars of Chavismo is popularity. The “Bolivarian Revolution” was born as a popular democratic movement in 1998. Hugo Chávez won thirteen elections between 1999 and 2013. Even when he lost the constitutional referendum in 2007, he accepted the outcome. Losing this election not only means the defeat of Maduro; it also spells the end of the appeal of Chavismo.
The most iconic portrait of the July 29 demonstrations was of a young man with a hammer, destroying a statue of Chávez in Coro, the capital of Falcón State. The day after the election, at least five statues of Chávez were torn down across the country. People are fed up with Chavismo and want to close this chapter of our history. The defeat of Maduro is the defeat of Chávez’s political project.
González won. In a democratic election, you have winners and losers. A rigged election doesn’t work that way: Even if you have the votes, winning power isn’t guaranteed. Maduro firmly believed two things that were not true. First, he thought he wasn’t performing as poorly as the polls indicated. Second, he believed that his repressive tools and electoral manipulation would be enough to swing the election in his favor.
Maduro miscalculated badly. The polls were accurate; González was beating him by more than 20 points. And his tools of social control were insufficient. People shed their fear and voted for a peaceful and constitutional change. This electoral behavior is amazing, but the most interesting political phenomenon lies behind the vote count.
The CNE ordered its operators at the poll stations to keep the tallies and not allow a public vote count. Because military personnel are in charge of the security of each polling station in Venezuela, it was hard for the opposition poll watchers to overcome that order. But they managed to defy it for two reasons. First, their courage and determination. Second, an unknown number of CNE operators and members of the armed forces decided to disobey the political instruction to block the tallies.
This is not just about González’s resounding victory. It’s about what that victory means: On election day, Venezuelans felt emboldened to break the bonds of consent that have held them in check.
The international community demands the truth. Autocratic powers such as Belarus, China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Turkey, and Russia congratulated Maduro for his victory. That’s no surprise. But the solidarity among democratic countries shouldn’t be taken for granted. The world’s democracies have been largely in lockstep on the need to respect the results and condemn the lack of transparency in Venezuela’s election.
Certainly, some countries have taken firmer positions than others. Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico have taken a neutral stance. They claim that “the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty must be respected through impartial verification of the results” and requested the tallies for an independent audit. Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, the United States, and the European Union have taken a stronger position. They do not recognize Maduro’s victory and demand that the results be respected.
Nevertheless, what is important right now is that the international community is united and working together. Today, the cleavage over Venezuela is not ideological — right versus left — but systemic: democracy versus dictatorship.
Maduro’s miscalculations have left him in a bind. Stealing the election could allow him to hold on to power, but it will deny him what he wanted to achieve with this election. After July 28, Maduro has lost international recognition, the legitimacy he gained after the failure of the interim government, and access to the international financing he needs to overcome the country’s economic crisis.
Repression and Terror
Maduro is in trouble. He has lost the people’s support and committed open electoral fraud. Venezuelans are resisting his turn to violence, repression, and new forms of control. With few options left, state-sponsored violence and terror are the authoritarian tools of choice.
Recording massive human-rights violations in real time is always difficult and dangerous, and the Venezuelan case is no exception. We have thousands of reports of human-rights violations, and human-rights organizations are doing their best to document the abuses. But it is still too early to identify precise patterns of repression or to have exact data on the victims.
I can, however, list seven mechanisms of repression and terror that I have seen on the ground.
1) Widespread persecution and arrest of political leaders, activists, and journalists. National opposition leaders are clear targets. Machado and González make few public appearances and have been forced to take extreme security measures. On August 5, Saab opened criminal proceedings against them. They are accused of a series of false allegations, including disseminating false information, instigating public disobedience, and instigating an insurrection. The risks are real. While driving on July 30, opposition leader Freddy Superlano was arrested by armed men in hoods when he exited his car. The leaders of the Unitary Platform, the opposition’s political alliance, are taking extreme security measures: They don’t sleep at their homes and only use their phones in airplane mode. Local political leaders are facing similar repression. On the morning of August 7, unidentified armed men broke into the homes of two local leaders of the opposition Primero Justicia party in El Limón, a poor neighborhood in Caracas. They kidnapped their young adult children. And the press faces increasing repression, too. According to the National Union of Press Workers, thirteen journalists have been arrested in Venezuela since July 28, and four have been charged with terrorism.
2) “Knock-knock” operations. A “knock-knock operation” is a technique for arresting and kidnapping those who oppose the regime. Its name encapsulates the method: State-security forces arrive at a house, knock down the door, and kidnap their victim. On August 6, a knock-knock operation arrived at the home of María Oropeza, leader of the Vente Venezuela party in the state of Portuguesa, just a few hours after she published a video denouncing the kidnappings. She broadcast her experience live on Instagram.
3) Social-media monitoring. On August 3, Diosdado Cabello, a former Chávez confidante who serves as the vice-president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, dedicated much of a special edition of his popular television show to social media. He showed TikTok videos made by young people, many in poor neighborhoods, who reject the dictatorship. Minutes later, he showed videos of these same young people in prison apologizing for their offenses. In Venezuela, the regime is now tracking social media to identify “enemies of the state.”
4) Crackdowns on demonstrators. Arrests during protests are not a new form of repression. But this time, the dynamic is different. Once the demonstrations are finished, state-security forces intercept those who are leaving and take them away. Most of the arrested are young, with an average age of twenty.
5) The police state. Imagine you are walking down the street, and the police stop you and check your phone. If you have made any comments in your private chats that could offend the regime, you could be detained or hauled to jail. This is our new normal after the stolen election. Social networks have been fundamental in mobilizing the people and speaking out against the fraud. With this measure, the dictatorship seeks to sow fear and prevent society from organizing. Today Venezuelans erase our texts and avoid talking about political issues in public.
6) Not letting people flee. On August 4, Edni López, a young professor at the Central University of Venezuela who works on humanitarian issues, went to the airport to travel to Argentina on vacation. That same morning she texted her mother to say her passport had been canceled. López was imprisoned for five days and now must appear before the Venezuelan authorities every 30 days. She is prohibited from leaving the country. López is not alone. Political and social activists have denounced the cancelation of their passports. While it is not known how many passports have been canceled, the number is presumed to be high.
7) Blocking direct-communication apps. WhatsApp is the most widespread messaging app in Venezuela. On August 6, Maduro denounced the use of it as subversive. According to the television network Telesur, Maduro claimed that “the WhatsApp messaging platform is a spying system” and called for Venezuelans to leave the platform for others such as WeChat and Telegram. WhatsApp is still available in Venezuela, but Maduro’s statements have stirred fear of a coming clampdown. On August 7, Maduro blocked “X” (formerly Twitter) and accused Elon Musk of “inciting hatred and fascism.”
Still, This Time Can Be Different
You might be wondering why I think this time can be different — why, when civic space is narrowing and the repression is so hard, I still think that there is an opportunity for democracy in my country. I firmly believe there is a chance for three reasons.
First, Chavismo lost the election, and everybody knows it. If the dictatorship wants to ignore the electoral results, they will have to build a strong and stable system of terror and control. That’s not impossible, but it requires a lot of resources and will be very difficult to maintain over time. Besides, this kind of repression can easily inspire a backlash against the regime and lead to its demise.
Second, Venezuelans have proven to be deeply resilient and committed to political change. We are not Zimbabwe in 2007 or Belarus in 2020. So far, our heritage of democratic struggle is allowing us to prevail and make good decisions. We also know that hope is the only antidote to fear, and Venezuelans have hope. As María Corina Machado often remarks, “This is an existential and spiritual struggle.” And she has proven to be strong and determined. This time, the regime is facing a woman who is willing to fight until the end.
Third, Latin America is aware of the consequences of Maduro remaining in power. The neighborhood knows that if he hangs on, there will be an extraordinary wave of migration that will change the domestic politics of the region. This creates a strong incentive to promote the country’s democratization.
Today in Venezuela, I firmly believe there is reason for hope. Because July 28 wasn’t just the day we defeated Nicolás Maduro at the polls. It was the day we began to retake the democracy that we lost.
Paola Bautista de Alemán is a Venezuelan academic, political activist, and member of the National Board of Primero Justicia and president of the FORMA Institute.
Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Confidencial, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
|
FURTHER READING |
||
Is This the Beginning of Maduro’s End?The Venezuelan strongman is attempting to steal the country’s presidential election and daring the people to stop him. But even if military leaders are backing him, Maduro is already weaker than he appears. |
Why This Time Is Different for VenezuelaFor years, the Venezuelan opposition has fought hard against a corrupt regime — and come up short. But this time, with four key ingredients in place, we are on the cusp of a historic victory. |
How Maduro SurvivedThe Venezuelan dictator defied sanctions, international isolation, and massive protests. He appears to have a firmer footing than he’s had in years. Now what? |