July has not been a good month for Nicolás Maduro. This weekend, Major General, Luis Rafael Laiza, director of the strategic command of the Military Forces, passed away. Victim of recurring episodes of depression, this senior official – one of the closest and most loyal to the president – took his own life, according to Caracas media.
In a less tragic episode, Maduro – who usually has problems with the command of Spanish – has been the object of repeated ridicule on social networks for the way in which he got tongue-tied at the graduation ceremony of some health professionals, when trying to pronouncing the words “otolaryngologist” and “otolaryngology”.
But what is truly serious has been the revelation of a dizzying 7 percent drop in Venezuelan GDP. during the first semester of 2023, according to data from the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF).
The respected entity drew attention to “a new recessive cycle” after two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, -7.6 percent in the first quarter and -6.3 in the second.
(Also read: Venezuela enters a new cycle of recession: these are the reasons of the economists)
And to this panorama is added the consolidation of the opposition leadership of former deputy María Corina Machado, who leads the polls for the anti-Chavismo primary elections cited for October. According to the polls, Machado would beat Maduro in a clean election next year.
However, the Comptroller General, dominated by Chavismo, confirmed that Machado is disqualified from being elected, due to a sanction imposed in 2015 against her, for an alleged failure in her affidavit of assets and that remains in force until 2030.
Machado leads the polls for the anti-Chavismo primary elections scheduled for October.
The pronouncement –seen as a dirty move– aroused harsh criticism from the United States government, as well as from the European Union, that had been accompanying the negotiations between the government and the opposition for a Venezuela’s return to democracy. Even President Gustavo Petro, who has wanted to position himself as the promoter of these talks, questioned the confirmation of the sanction against Machado.
“No administrative authority should take away political rights” from a citizen, said the Colombian president about a thesis he has defended since 2013, when the Colombian Attorney General’s Office removed him from the position of mayor of Bogotá, a sanction that was later reversed.
With 31 percent approval and more than 65 percent disapproval in the polls, with the economy back into recession and with the support of Washington and Europe for the negotiations with the opposition in what we will see about the Machado case, The outlook for Maduro –and for Venezuela– is very different from what appeared a year ago.
(You may be interested in: Hugo Carvajal’s extradition adds to the list of Chavistas imprisoned in the United States)
The outlook for Maduro – and for Venezuela – is very different from the one that appeared a year ago.
In 2022, hopes of an eventual return of Venezuela to democracy flourished. The table formed in Mexico City between the Government and the opposition gave the impression of advancing in concrete agreements with the intervention of the United States and the European Union as guarantors. Even the impulse that President Petro wanted to give to a political solution to the crisis in his neighbor fed illusions.
The economic data of that time contributed to the optimism.
Although there was considerable disparity in the figures, from the highest of the Central Bank of Venezuela (around 18 percent GDP growth in 2022) to the most modest of the IMF (6 percent), the reality is that In that year, the country stopped 27 consecutive quarters of contraction, which had meant a true economic catastrophe of almost seven years.
Part of the economic boost was due to the reactivation of oil production. In the best years of the state-owned PDVSA, Venezuela produced more than three million barrels per day.
(You can read: Chavismo bets on the lifting of sanctions in the face of diminished opposition)
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In 2022, the country halted 27 consecutive quarters of contraction.
By the start of this decade, it had fallen well below half a million, with critical periods when it barely exceeded 350,000 barrels. In 2022, Venezuela was again above 700,000 barrels per day, which, although far from the levels reached 12 years ago, allowed an economy enormously dependent on crude to take a breather.
Part of that oil (some 180,000 barrels a day) was purchased by the US, which partially lifted the economic sanctions against the regime to, among other things, replace US purchases of Russian oil, the supply of which was suspended after the invasion. to Ukraine.
Washington and Caracas moved towards a ‘detente’ on several fronts, including a prisoner swap last October. President Joe Biden granted a judicial pardon to Maduro’s nephews-in-law, Efraín Campo Flores and Francisco Flores. In exchange, Caracas released seven US citizens, including five Citgo oil executives who Biden said had been “wrongly imprisoned in Venezuela” for years.
(Also: Venezuela: Did the opposition debate serve to design a strategy against Maduro?)
The negotiating table in Mexico, that had been frozen at the end of 2021 after the extradition from Cape Verde to the United States of the Colombian-Venezuelan Álex Saab, it was finally able to reactivate in November 2022.
Although Caracas continued to demand the release of Saab – a business agent who was granted a diplomatic passport by Venezuela after being arrested in Cape Verde, and whom the US Justice accuses of serving as a front man for the corruption of high-ranking dignitaries of the Maduro regime – , reached an agreement with the opposition on the handling of 3,000 million dollars of funds frozen to the Government in the world bank.
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Delegation of nine members of the ruling party for dialogue with the opposition in Mexico.
Presidential Press
As agreed, these resources would be used in a program that both parties would design to meet the basic needs of the Venezuelan people, who, due to the serious economic crisis, have faced a social drama of catastrophic proportions, as the poverty rate has skyrocketed to less than 30 percent. percent to more than 80 percent in the Maduro era.
With this picture of improvement in the economic environment and the political-diplomaticat the end of 2022 there were reasons to think of a negotiated solution and a return to full democracy.
(Keep reading: Venezuela closes the door to EU electoral observation for the 2024 presidential elections)
Since mid-2021, and at the request of the government of President Iván Duque, Washington and the European Union accepted the conditions that the elections in Venezuela had to meet, if Maduro really wanted to commit to a return to democracy.
“Free general elections (presidency and Parliament), with guarantees for the opposition and international surveillance” were the words that the then Colombian Vice President and Foreign Minister Marta Lucía Ramírez conveyed to the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and which he welcomed.
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Maduro supporters in Caracas. He has been president since 2013, after the death of Hugo Chávez.
Federico Parra. AFP
The year of disappointment?
2023 has not lived up to expectations. Maduro began to delay a new meeting of the table in Mexicothat, once he had made progress on the issue of frozen funds, was obliged to address a clear electoral calendar for a free general election and duly supervised.
At the end of April, the failure of a summit called by President Petro in Bogotá served to confirm that the process was not in good health. On the eve of the meeting, Caracas again demanded the immediate release of Saab and the removal of economic sanctions by the US and the EU, as a condition for continuing negotiations.
In doing so, he left the summit mortally wounded before it even started. The meeting ended without agreements and without even a joint declaration. “Petro was very upset with Maduro,” a senior official from the Colombian Foreign Ministry told EL TIEMPO.
(In other news: With disqualifications, Chavismo intensifies pressure in the Nicaraguan style)
The risk of a new tightening of sanctions rises again
“After the optimism of last year, with the confirmation of the sanction against Machado, the failure of the very improvised meeting in Bogotá, and the long delays that Caracas has given to the return to the table of Mexico, neither in the European foreign ministries nor in Washington We are optimistic,” a European diplomatic source in Paris told EL TIEMPO a few days ago.
“And most disturbingly, as the run-up to the US election season approaches, and it becomes clear that several European governments are leaning towards right-wing governments, the risk of a new tightening of sanctions rises again”added the source.
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20 delegations met in the Bolívar Hall of the Foreign Ministry in April. Although the summit closed without greater successes.
Cesar Melgarejo / EL TIEMPO
“If Maduro does not send clear signals of commitment to an electoral process without cheating, so that strong opposition candidates, such as Machado, are disqualified by means of dubious legality, the sanctions will not only not disappear but may even come back stronger,” he concluded.
Does that worry Maduro? Maybe, but not enough to change his stance. A few days ago, The Washington Post made an unflattering assessment, after the confirmation of the sanction to Machado.
(Also: Maduro’s 10 years in power: What is post-Chavez Venezuela like?)
In the article, the newspaper quotes the Venezuelan professor at Tulane University David Smilde, who maintains that, With polls showing Maduro and his party sinking among voters, his regime is afraid of what could happen with free elections. and with guarantees.
“I think the idea of an electoral solution (for Venezuela) does not look promising,” he said.
For his part, Andrés Izarra, former Minister of Communications at the time of Hugo Chávez, and today a harsh critic of Maduro, told the Post that the president has no chance of winning in a competitive election. For Izarra, Maduro and their people “are not going to leave power to go to jail (…). And they have the power to prevent that from happening.”
MAURICIO VARGAS LINARES
WEATHER ANALYST
[email protected]
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