Under the cover of COVID-19 and with little public backlash, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro has taken a series of steps to further weaken his opposition ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for later this year.
By Americas Quaterly – Félix Seijas Rodríguez
Jun 24, 2020
On June 12, the administration – controlled Supreme Court appointed five members to the board of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council, the public organization tasked with administering, organizing and carrying out elections. Among the group were not only longtime Maduro loyalists, but also dissident members of the opposition.
The move to shore up control of the country’s election body will dampen spirits – and limit voter turnout – among the majority of Venezuelans who would like to see a change in government.
Maduro’s next move was to suspend the leadership boards of three of the four so-called G4 opposition parties (Acción Democrática, Primero Justicia and Un Nuevo Tiempo), and hand the parties over to more malleable former members. The fourth G4 party, Leopoldo López’s Voluntad Popular, was simply prohibited by Maduro’s National Constituent Assembly from participating in elections at all.
Such a brazen violation of democratic rights might once have drawn thousands of Venezuelans into the streets. That is not the case today, for two main reasons.
First, COVID-19 has given the regime the perfect excuse to exert even more control over public movement and keep any pressure contained. Indeed, despite National Assembly President Juan Guadió and his supporters’ claim to power, the coronavirus has made it crystal clear that Maduro is the one in control of the machinery of state.
The second reason Maduro’s election manipulation has failed to cause public outcry has to do with the opposition’s strategy over the last 18 months.
Guaidó’s coalition has centered its hopes on support and action from external actors, primarily the U.S., to tip the unequal balance of power in Venezuela away from Maduro, with the hope of an eventual rupture within the armed forces. That approach initially sent signals to the population that a short-term resolution to the struggle was possible. When a leadership change didn’t come to fruition, frustration began to spread.
What’s more, the suggestion implicit in Guaidó’s strategy – that a powerful external ally would be needed to confront the Maduro regime – cemented in the collective opposition imagination the idea that it’s own internal efforts would be insufficient to lead to change. The result has been to weaken the opposition’s ability to mobilize supporters and severely strain the leadership’s connection with the general public.
As a result, Maduro’s government has been made to look far more stable than it actually is.
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