In Venezuela’s Election, Maduro’s Ruling Party Faces an Existential Vote

They’re already setting the stage for violence if Maduro wins! I’ve already predicted that they’ll dispute the election results!*

In Venezuela’s Election, Maduro’s Ruling Party Faces an Existential Vote

Over the course of a generation, Chavismo, as the country’s socialist movement is called, has shattered the nation’s democracy, presided over an extraordinary economic contraction unlike any seen outside of war, and become the source of one of the largest migrant crises in the world.

The election, held on the birthday of the movement’s founder, Hugo Chávez, pits Mr. Chávez’s successor, President Nicolás Maduro, against the previously little-known Edmundo González, a former diplomat. [He was a diplomat before the Bolivarian Revolution]

But Mr. González is essentially the surrogate candidate for María Corina Machado, a hard-charging former lawmaker who has emerged as the nation’s ~~newest~~ opposition leader, rallying people behind a promise to restore democracy and bring Venezuelans back home. When Mr. Maduro’s government barred Ms. Machado from running for office, her coalition managed to get Mr. González on the ballot instead.

(A supporter of Margaret Thatcher, the [neo-]conservative icon, some analysts and political commentators have taken to calling Ms. Machado the “Iron Lady.”)

…

In an interview a day before the vote, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, a legislator and the son of the president, said he was sure his father would win re-election.

“We are confident in the victory, not because we are triumphalists, but because we have done our homework,” he said.

“We have built our machinery,” he said, referring to the grass-roots electoral apparatus that both sides see as vital to their victory on Sunday.

His father has rarely, if ever, mentioned a scenario in which their party loses. But Mr. Maduro Guerra asserted that they were willing to concede if the vote count was not in their favor.

“We will recognize the result and become the opposition,” he said. “Life goes on.”

The Machado-González team has relied on polls that give Mr. González an advantage of around 20 percentage points. But people close to the government say their assessments show a much closer race.

…

Mr. Maduro can still attract a crowd, and at his closing rally in the capital, Caracas, he boomed into a microphone, painting the vote as a choice between the “extreme right” and a compassionate socialism that offered peace and security.

“Fascists!” he shouted. “You will not return!”

Some people said they had come out of loyalty to Mr. Chávez, or out of fear that the opposition’s market-friendly agenda would cost them their jobs. [neoliberalism]

José Gregorio Urbina, a retired official for Caracas’s local government, said he would vote for Mr. Maduro because he represented “the humble, the dispossessed, the Indigenous, the workers and all the people who have resisted the empire.”

At the Machado-González rally, held in a wealthier part of the city, Mairene Reimi, who owns a blood-testing lab, called Ms. Machado’s mobilization “the rebirth of Venezuela.”

…

Mr. Maduro is holding an election in part because of international pressure: The United States has promised to lift punishing economic sanctions on the country’s oil industry only if the country holds a competitive presidential vote.
These sanctions, the strictest of which Washington imposed in 2019, have strangled an already crippled economy.

…

Whatever result is announced, it is very likely to be disputed by the other side, possibly leading to protest and a violent response from the armed forces.

…

In recent interviews in Caracas and Maracaibo, a major city on the country’s Western edge, some supporters of Ms. Machado vowed to take to the streets if Mr. Maduro declared victory.

Luis Bravo, who attended the Machado event on Thursday, wore a helmet he had also used in 2017 during huge anti-government protests.

If Mr. Maduro declares a win and there are demonstrations, “I will go,” Mr. Bravo said. “I am praying that it doesn’t come to that because, obviously, a lot of people are going to die. But if I have to, I have to.”

…

On the other side, Mr. Maduro’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, said in an interview that while some people had become “intoxicated” by the opposition’s message, “they are not the majority.”

And he promised that there would be “a peaceful, massive, multitudinous election, without acts of violence.”