Venezuela’s dictator plans a sham election, but recent events may ruin his scheme | Opinion

The conventional wisdom is that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, who has banned all major opposition candidates from running for office, will proclaim himself reelected in his sham July 28 elections. But things are not going well for Maduro, and the latest events make me wonder whether he will get away with his plans.

Granted, the Venezuelan ruler is determined to stay in power. He is likely to place new restrictions on opposition candidates, so that he can reelect himself for a new term in a rigged electoral process that would be accepted by Russia, Iran, and Cuba, and perhaps some other Latin American countries.

But Maduro probably didn’t count with the level of internal opposition he’s facing in Venezuela, nor with the skillful reaction from his political rivals to circumvent his electoral schemes, nor with the waning support from some of his key leftist allies in Latin America.

First, Maduro is widely unpopular in Venezuela, and his recent moves to ban one top opposition candidate after another may have boomeranged against him. His efforts to rig the electoral process are so obvious that they have become laughable and triggered a growing rejection at home and abroad.

Dwindling support

A survey by Venezuela’s Delphos polling firm in December found that only 25% of Venezuelans support Maduro’s ruling party, down from 30% a year earlier. Another poll released by More Consulting released this month shows that only 22% of Venezuelans intend to vote for Maduro, while 46% plan to vote for the strongest opposition candidate.

Maduro’s vulnerability had already become apparent at the opposition-organized primary elections in October, when — unexpectedly — more than 2.4 million people showed up to vote despite government intimidation efforts. Maria Corina Machado, the most vocal of Maduro’s critics, won with 93% of the vote.

After the Maduro-controlled justice system reacted by enacting a ban on Machado from running for office, Machado appointed Corina Yoris, a politically unknown 80-year-old university professor, to run in her place. Predictably, shortly thereafter, the Maduro regime banned Yoris from running, citing a technicality.

Earlier this month, however, something extraordinary happened: Manuel Rosales, a governor who criticizes Maduro but whom Venezuela’s opposition leaders had long suspected to be a behind-the-scenes Maduro ally, announced that he was not running for president as an alternative opposition candidate.

Instead, Rosales teamed up with Machado to support a united opposition candidate, little-known 74-year-old diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urritia. His candidacy complicates Maduro’s plan to split the opposition in various parties, and declare himself the winner even if he can only win a third of the vote.

Of course, there is a good chance that Maduro will ban Gonzalez Urrutia — or the entire opposition Democratic Unity (MUD) coalition party that appointed him — perhaps even before you get to read these lines.

But Gonzalez Urrutia took the precaution to also present himself as another party’s candidate. In addition, the MUD may pick yet another unknown candidate. The bottom line is that whoever gets the support of Machado and the MUD may have a majority of the vote.

Pushback in Latin America

Second, Maduro’s key democratically-elected leftist allies in Latin America — Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva and Colombian president Gustavo Petro — have started to publicly urge the Venezuelan ruler to allow a fair electoral process. They clearly fear that a further radicalization of Venezuela’s dictatorship would hurt their own standing with moderate voters in their home countries.

Lula recently welcomed the decision by Venezuela’s opposition to unite behind a single candidate as an “extraordinary” event. Petro, who was once banned himself from running for president, has said that the decision to ban Machado was an “anti-democratic coup.”

Third, the Biden Administration may decide to put more economic and diplomatic pressure on Maduro to allow Gonzalez Urrutia to run. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has been urged by Venezuelan opposition leaders to step up U.S. diplomatic efforts to get Brazil and Colombia to press Maduro into allowing a competitive election, people familiar with the talks told me.

To be sure, Maduro will not leave power voluntarily. He may decide to suspend the elections altogether, and turn Venezuela into an unabashed tyranny like Cuba or Nicaragua. But Venezuela has a much better-organized opposition than Cuba, and has a less diversified economy than Nicaragua, which makes it more vulnerable to U.S. oil sanctions.

Venezuela’s opposition faces an uphill battle to win the July elections. But Maduro is finding himself in a much tougher spot than many of us thought six months ago. I’m not ruling anything out.

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