The joy with which President Nicolás Maduro celebrated the signing, on October 17 in Barbados, of the agreement between his authoritarian regime and the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform, to hold presidential elections in the second half of next year, fueled concerns about a too vague text that, for now, only serves someone who many consider a dictator.
“Long live the people!” Maduro said on television a few hours after the signing. “Victory, victory,” he added, regarding the callss partial agreements that led the Joe Biden government to temporarily and limitedly lift some of the many economic sanctions imposed against a government that has been dedicated for years to imprisoning opponents, preventing the strongest anti-Chavista candidates from participating in the elections and suffocating independent media.
(Also read: Venezuelan NGOs ask Petro to influence the lifting of sanctions against disqualified persons)
The spokesperson for the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform, Gerardo Blyde, expressed some optimism when evaluating what was signed after 24 months of negotiations that were interrupted several times: “In these two years we have insisted on seeking consensual solutions,” he said. Today we can confirm that this fight has taken its first step towards the electoral route with conditions that allow political change,” he explained.
Blyde insisted on talking about a “first step” to advance an “equitable electoral schedule,” international observation of the process and updating of the electoral roll so that all adults among the seven million Venezuelans who have left the country in recent years can vote.
The government and opposition of Venezuela in the signing of the Barbados agreements.
María Corina Machado, the opposition leader who, five days after signing the agreement, swept the primary votes, was much more cautious. organized by the opposition. She obtained more than 92 percent of nearly two and a half million votes cast, an indisputable political mandate for the leader who, to date, She is disqualified by the regime from being a presidential candidate.
“The agreement does not provide certainty to Venezuelans, as it does not specify the specific actions and deadlines that will clear the path to 2024,” Machado explained in a statement. And he remembered that, in the past, “The Maduro regime has signed agreements that it repeatedly violates.”
(You may be interested in: María Corina Machado, the leader chosen to defeat Maduro in 2024: will she achieve it?)
The agreement does not provide certainty to Venezuelans, as it does not specify the specific actions and deadlines that will clear the route to 2024.
The key to everything is in a phrase of the agreement that seems to erase with the elbow what it writes with the hand, by proposing, among other electoral guarantees, “the authorization of all presidential candidates, as long as they meet the established requirements by the law”.
In 2015, when she was campaigning to be a candidate for Parliament, Machado was disqualified by the regime’s Comptroller’s Office for one year for alleged omissions in her declaration of assets, one more of the many legal tricks that Chavismo has used it to remove more than 1,400 opposition candidates from the electoral game since 2002. Last June, When the polls made it clear that Machado would defeat Maduro by a wide margin in a clean presidential election, the disqualification was extended to 15 years.
![Maria Corina Machado](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/10/24/65385597e31d1.jpeg)
María Corina Machado, winner of Sunday’s opposition primaries in Venezuela.
carrot and stick
As for Washington, the reaction to the signing of the agreement was positive although, like Blyde, That government and its allies see it as a first step. In a joint statement, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken; the high representative for Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Josep Borrell; and the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, James Cleverly, and Canada, Melanie Joly, sponsoring countries of the dialogues, welcomed the regime’s commitment to facilitating “fair and competitive elections.”
(You can read: Primaries in Venezuela: massive participation and mobilization is surprising)
“This agreement represents a necessary step in the continuation of an inclusive dialogue process and the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,” the statement said, hinting that it is an unfinished business.
To insist that there must be more progress, The four countries reiterated their request for the “unconditional release of all those unjustly detained, the independence of the electoral process and judicial institutions, freedom of expression and respect for human and political rights.”
But Washington and the EU, as well as Canada and the United Kingdom, whom the opposition sees as guarantors of the process, know well that Caracas will not take the many steps that are needed without a mixture of carrot and stick.
![Venezuela recovery](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2022/05/27/6291662a2ddfe.jpeg)
The US partially lifted some sanctions against Venezuela after signing the agreements with the opposition.
The carrot appeared a few hours after the signing in Barbados, in the form of a partial and temporary lifting of some of the more than 900 sanctions imposed since 2015 against Venezuela.
The US government – which sanctions companies that do business with Caracas – exceptionally authorized Shell to operate the Venezuelan Dragon field to extract and export gas to Trinidad and Tobago, so that it can go to the markets from there. international, especially Europe, which needs so much gas after the suspension of pumping by Russia, after the invasion of Ukraine.
As Francisco Monaldi, an oil expert at the Baker Institute at Rice University in Texas, pointed out, this authorization “marks a milestone because exporting liquefied natural gas from these fields has been planned for three decades” and until now it has not been possible.
(Also: Oil and elections, at stake after agreement between Caracas and Washington)
Butthe Biden government also took its share, urged to show results in stopping illegal immigration. When the ink of the signature in Barbados was not yet dry, Washington launched a repatriation process for Venezuelans who have illegally immigrated to the United States. On Wednesday the 18th, the day after the agreement was announced, a flight with 130 migrants landed at the Maiquetía airport, which serves Caracas.
![Conviasa](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2017/07/28/597b4069a7fe2.jpeg)
Washington launched a repatriation process for Venezuelans who have illegally immigrated to the United States.
“Both in the United States and here in Europe we are attentive to Caracas fulfilling the commitments agreed with the opposition, and offering guarantees that next year’s elections will be held without playing dirty with mechanisms such as the disqualification of opposition candidates,” a diplomatic source in Paris told EL TIEMPO.
“Although it is not about making mentions by name in the agreements – added the source – on the lips of all the guarantors of the process it is María Corina Machado: it is not an exaggeration to say that if she is not allowed to be a candidate, the elections will not be considered truly free.”
(Keep reading: Chavismo says that it is impossible for a disqualified person to participate in presidential elections)
If they do not allow her (Machado) to be a candidate, the elections will not be considered truly free
Regarding this point, for now Maduro is intransigent. “Don’t dress, you’re not going,” he wrote in his X account hours before the announcement of the Barbados agreement, clarifying that Machado’s qualification as a candidate had not been negotiated and argue, in reference to the Comptroller’s Office that sanctioned it, that “Venezuelan institutions are respected.”
The rules of the game are on the table: upon signing an agreement that, although vague and incomplete, is still a first step, Washington and its allies responded with authorization for the extraction and export of gas. The more progress towards a fair electoral process, the more concessions will come.
Apart from the issue of Machado, on which no one expects definitions for now, the expectation focuses on the gradual release of more than 273 political prisoners, including some with dual nationality, from Venezuela and European countries. On the 19th the first five were released from prison.
The strength of María Corina Machado
One week after the signing of the agreement, and after the impressive victory of María Corina Machado in Sunday’s primaries, It is evident that, as the negotiation process between the Government and the opposition progresses, The issue of his candidacy will prevail as the decisive one.
Shortly before midnight on Monday and with more than two-thirds of the votes counted, Machado won by a very wide margin, with nearly one and a half million votes (92.5 percent). The second best ranked barely reached 70,000 votes (4.45 percent).
![Opposition Primary Elections in Venezuela 2023 in Bogotá](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/10/22/6535737d36cf0.jpeg)
Voting tables for the opposition primary elections in Venezuela.
Sergio Acero. Time
At this rate, The vote in the primaries may be close to two and a half million votes, a resounding success if one takes into account that the process did not have the support of any state entity, and faced problems of transporting voters and electoral material.
With the 56-year-old former representative around 2.3 million votes, It is a plebiscite that imposes Machado as the sole candidate, above the divisions that have taken place in these years the different opposition groups.
(More news: ‘I am going to defeat Maduro, have no doubts’: María Corina Machado)
![Maria Corina Machado](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_vertical_content_new/files/crop/uploads/2023/10/24/65385f2be1c1f.r_1698202058022.646-0-1971-1996.jpeg)
María Corina Machado, winner of the opposition primaries in Venezuela.
The overwhelming vote rewards the verticality of the former congresswoman, who has remained radical in her fight first against Chávez and then against Maduro, and who was outside the controversial interim government of Juan Guaidó, as well as the multiple disputes between the leaders of anti-Chavismo. .
But María Corina Machado’s victory in the primaries is not only an imposition for the opposition forces. Also, and a lot, for the guarantors – the United States, Canada and European countries – of the negotiation process between the Government and the opposition.
If she is not authorized by the electoral authorities to compete against Maduro, for Washington and its allies, a general lifting of sanctions will be unpresentable. before public opinion. “Without Machado on the 2024 electoral card, the process will be a failure,” noted the European diplomatic source already cited.
The dilemma for Maduro is clear: allow Machado to participate and save the economy Venezuela thanks to a substantial reduction in sanctions, putting himself in serious danger of losing power, something that neither he nor his people contemplate. Or keep Machado out of the game, which will mean going back on everything advanced so far in the negotiations. Which of the costs do you plan to assume?
MAURICIO VARGAS LINARES
TIME ANALYST
[email protected]
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