Nicolás Maduro’s advisor feels quite calm despite the defeat. It hasn’t even been two days since the opposition snatched control of Parliament from Chavismo at the polls, but this trusted person of the Venezuelan president doesn’t seem too worried. “The answer has to be more socialism,” he says, which will later translate into Chavismo not accepting the setback. Juan Guaidó’s advisor arrives euphoric at the table, takes a flask out of his jacket’s inside pocket and pours himself a drink. Radiant, he predicts that Maduro’s fall is imminent. “His departure has become a business,” is his way of celebrating international pressure, particularly from the United States. Both scenes, in which this journalist is present, take place in different places in Caracas: the first in December 2015 and the second, in March 2019. Five years and dozens of decisive and historic days later, the two scenes are in the same place, and the first is in the same place, … jokes continue to permeate much of Venezuelan political logic. Chavismo’s entrenchment and repression is growing and a sector of the opposition still glimpses magical and impossible ideas to achieve a solution. Meanwhile, international initiatives come up against something that remains undaunted: Nicolás Maduro and the circle of interests that surround him. And one question is becoming more and more resonant: how to break the status quo in Venezuela?
There is consensus on several issues among the dozen people, from opposition advisers, diplomats and sources familiar with the conversations of the troika of Latin American powers – Brazil, Colombia and Mexico – who were consulted for this article and who spoke on condition of anonymity: the perception that the July 28 election was fraudulent; the doubts generated by the institutions controlled by Chavismo – the National Electoral Council and the Superior Court of Justice in which Maduro relies to settle the controversy – and the feeling that for Maduro the cost of leaving power is much greater than that of remaining in it by implementing brutal repression. Meanwhile, the government denies any crisis scenario. “The people are doing their jobs, the government too and the empire is doing its thing,” a high-ranking Chavista official conceded these days.
Consensus aside, the data, which is known to tell stories, tells a terrible story in Venezuela: in the last decade more than seven million Venezuelans have been forced to leave their country; there are dozens of politicians who have been persecuted, imprisoned or disqualified. The economic collapse has been notable for years, aggravated by the sanctions of the United States against the Caribbean country. Four waves of brutal repression have led to thousands of detainees and hundreds of deaths; since July 28 alone, the day of the elections, more than 1,400 people have been arrested, according to independent organizations, a figure that Maduro has raised to more than 2,000. The president has ordered many of these people to be transferred to maximum security prisons. The shamelessness is such that the head of the Bolivarian National Police (PNB) wrote on his social networks this Friday before the new opposition march: “On Saturday there is free transportation to Tocorón (one of the prisons) one way only.”
Each crisis in Venezuela is similar to the previous one, but it always brings some differences. One of the most significant has been the refusal of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to recognize Maduro’s victory, which was proclaimed by the electoral authority. The three leftist powers in Latin America, whose presidents, Lula, Petro and López Obrador, have been allies of Maduro and Chavismo, have insisted on an “impartial verification” of the results and on achieving a negotiated solution to the crisis. As the days go by, the desire for a quick solution is almost inversely proportional to the enthusiasm aroused by the initiative of a troika that, for many, has become a duo as Mexico’s role has blurred.
Brazil is leading all diplomatic efforts, say those familiar with the talks, which many define as “testimonies” or “intentions.” Lula, Celso Amorim, his advisor on international affairs, and Mauro Vieira, the current foreign minister, have used the power of Itamaraty to convince the democratic world to support the initiative they are promoting. Colombia, with its foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, at the forefront, maintains permanent contact with the opposition and its Brazilian and American counterparts – Murillo was ambassador to Washington – a key piece in the Venezuelan puzzle. Mexico got involved at the beginning and although the foreign minister, Alicia Bárcena, is informed by Brasilia and Bogotá of each step, it has stopped playing an active role compared to the other two countries. The United States, the European Union, with Spain at the head, and a large group of Latin American countries, contribute to intensifying international pressure together, without each country renouncing its individual positions. In any case, all the consulted sources agree that the policy of maximum tension that was experienced in 2019 after the recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim president by more than 60 countries, which turned out to be a resounding failure, is being avoided.
Lula and Petro have been the most adept at suggesting new elections or a transitional coalition government. While the Colombian president launched the idea through his X account, the Brazilian leader has been harsher in his statements. “Maduro knows that he owes the world an explanation,” he said on Wednesday in reference to the transparency of the results. A day later, when asked if he considers Venezuela a dictatorship, he replied: “I think Venezuela has a very unpleasant regime. I don’t think it’s a dictatorship, it’s a government with an authoritarian bias.”
The proposals of Lula and Petro have been met with rejection from both the opposition and the Chavistas, and the disdain of Maduro himself. In a huddle with journalists, the Venezuelan president launched a barb at both presidents and sent several messages between the lines. “We do not practice microphone diplomacy,” said the Chavista leader, before recalling that in Brazil, Bolsonaro claimed fraud in the election that returned Lula to power and Venezuela remained on the sidelines. He said of Petro that they speak “a lot in private, on the phone” and that Venezuela will continue to support the peace process that Colombia is maintaining with the ELN guerrillas, many of whose conversations have been held in Caracas.
“It is not easy for Brazil and Colombia to recognize a government like Maduro’s, but no one wants to break with him either,” sums up one of the people consulted, who has maintained contacts with both governments. For both, but especially Colombia, a new wave of Venezuelan migration would mean another internal crisis, while it needs to have its border under control. In the case of Brazil, this is compounded by the economic activity it maintains with Venezuela and a question of leadership that compromises Lula, not only regionally, but also with the United States and Europe.
The role of Mexico is a separate case. At least three people who have held conversations with the López Obrador government show deep disappointment with its attitude. They believe that Mexico has become dizzy, or what in Mexican jargon is known as cantinflearThe outgoing Mexican president initially agreed to be part of the troika, but then backed out and asked not to get involved. The argument suggested by Mexican sources is that Brazil and Colombia have internal reasons for trying to find a solution to the conflict. In addition, Mexico criticises the “lack of clarity in the path to follow”.
“The various international declarations show that there is no active mediation with fluid communication with the Venezuelan actors, but rather theoretical proposals to try to promote the resolution of the conflict,” wrote this week Mariano de Alba, a Venezuelan lawyer expert in international law and diplomacy, adding: “Without flexibility and willingness to consider proposals for a solution to the conflict, Venezuela is heading down a blind alley of uncertain duration, where the impact of the conflict will be suffered by the citizens in the face of very serious obstacles to economic recovery.” In this same sense, Maryhen Jiménez, a doctor in Political Science from the University of Oxford, says that the role of Brazil and Colombia “is important, but at the same time limited.” “The ability to influence will depend on effective coordination between actors in the region. The proposals they have made, so far, do not seem coordinated with each other. Secondly, it remains to be seen to what extent these actors can influence the preferences of the government and the opposition to consider negotiated alternatives,” she comments.
Prudence, patience, discretion are some of the words that are being used these days in the conversations about the possible exit. Words that, on the other hand, go against the recent tradition of Venezuelan politics, where every step is amplified by a multitude of loudspeakers. The inauguration of the new government in Venezuela will be on January 10th of next year. “It will be a long process,” resigned a person close to Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who, according to the minutes in his possession, beat Maduro with 67% to the Chavista leader’s 30%. Several of the sources value González’s diplomatic experience, who was ambassador in Argentina and Algeria and was also stationed in El Salvador. “He will always be inclined to negotiate,” they agree.
Maria Corina Machado has insisted on giving incentives to get Maduro to agree to leave power, an attitude that goes hand in hand with the United States. “Maduro has no incentive to negotiate,” assume several sources who have been aware of the conversations between the Latin American countries. “They do not have enough pressure, for him to give up power he has to feel that he cannot stay,” they agree. That feeling would come through mobilizations and uncontrollable pressure in the streets or with a risk of fracture in the military leadership, something that seems chimerical. “All of that could happen in the future but it is not happening at the moment and he has room to control it.”
Maduro himself has joked about the possibility of accepting these incentives, saying that all he wants from the United States is for it not to interfere in Venezuelan politics. This Friday, during a meeting with evangelical pastors, he said that he is moved by “the spirit of Jesus in the desert. After 40 days and 40 nights, when he was tempted by the devil to turn stones into bread, he responded: ‘Man does not live by bread alone. I carry the strength of Jesus in the desert and I will not fall into temptations.'”
The opposition is confident that maintaining international pressure will help, in the short term, at least to stop the repression. The demonstrations in the streets, like the one this Saturday, have diminished compared to others in the past in the face of the Chavista response after December 29. “They have sown a regime of terror. No one wakes up thinking they are going to be killed, but they do wake up thinking they might be arrested, that they are going to be extorted, that their son or daughter is going to be taken away,” sums up a person close to the opposition’s decision-making core.
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