Gideon Long (Bogota) | Financial Times
Nobody in Venezuela seriously doubts who will win the presidential election the country holds next weekend; certainly not President Nicolás Maduro.
“The revolution is going to record the biggest victory in its entire electoral history,” Mr Maduro boasted last week on a presidential flight back to Caracas from a campaign rally. “Long live beautiful Venezuela!”
Dimitris Pantoulas, a political analyst based in Caracas, believes the president’s confidence is well-founded. “Maduro will win. Of that I have zero doubt,” he said. “What’s more, I don’t think he’ll even need to resort to outright fraud on election day to do it. The electoral process is skewed so much in his favour that he will get the votes he needs.”
The bigger question is what Mr Maduro will do after next Sunday’s vote given the magnitude of Venezuela’s economic collapse, mounting international opposition to his rule, social discontent at home and increasing restiveness within the armed forces.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a coup within Chavismo . . . He [Maduro] can’t keep running the country like this,” Mr Pantoulas said. referring to the ruling movement formed by the late President Hugo Chávez, Mr Maduro’s patron and predecessor. “Venezuela at the moment is ungovernable.”
Internationally, there is the risk of more international sanctions, including a possible ban by Washington on US purchases of about 500,000 barrels per day of Venezuelan crude exports. Private claims against the government are also starting to snowball.
This month, US group ConocoPhillips seized assets that state oil company PDVSA holds in the Caribbean to compensate it for $2bn owed in a dispute dating back a decade. PDVSA recalled its oil tankers to national waters to stop further seizures.
Creditors of Venezuela’s partially defaulted$70bn of bonds are also starting to take action. Last month, for the first time, a defaulted bondholder opened a lawsuit in New York against PDVSA, and similar actions are likely to follow.
The increasingly cornered Venezuelan authorities have also recently arrested executives from the country’s largest bank Banesco and from US oil company Chevron.
“Both incidents show a government with increasingly scarce tools to deal with a rapidly deteriorating economic crisis and threats to internal unity,” said Risa Grais-Targow, Latin American director at the Eurasia Group. “The government has few policy options beyond intervention and scapegoating.”
Domestically, there are growing risks too. Fissures may be opening up in the military as soldiers leave its ranks, amid reports of a crackdown on nine officers who were arrested last month on suspicion of plotting an uprising.
“Sources agree the situation in the barracks is getting worse by the day, and that without changes, it will explode sooner rather than later,” opposition news website Caracas Chronicles recently reported.
Tensions within the governing socialist party have also been long rumoured and are likely to be put to the test as the strains on Venezuela’s economy increase. Mr Maduro has already purged senior ranks and put in place loyal military men, such as Manuel Quevedo as head of PDVSA.
But despite such future challenges and current problems that include plunging oil production and hyperinflation, Mr Maduro is still expected to win the May 20 election hands down.
“These elections are a fraud,” said María Rosario Pérez, a 38-year-old shop worker in Caracas. “We already know what the results will be. The elections are just pure theatre.”
Government-issued food ration cards provide an incentive for many to vote for Mr Maduro in a country suffering widespread scarcities. In addition, the opposition’s best-known figures are under house arrest, barred from seeking office, or in exile.
The US, Canada, Europe, and Latin America’s biggest countries say they will not recognise the vote and are considering more international sanctions as punishment.
Mr Maduro, meanwhile, has allowed two relatively unknown candidates to run: former state governor Henri Falcón and evangelist preacher Jesús Bertucci. Critics say this provides the appearance of a competitive democratic race for foreign consumption, but it has further divided the demoralised opposition and many are expecting high abstention rates.
In contrast to the massed opposition protests of last year, it has been a strangely quiet election campaign as a result, with the government assuming victory and its opponents largely resigned to defeat.
“Election fever is the last thing there is here,” said Eugenio Martínez, a Caracas-based journalist and election specialist. “Even Maduro hasn’t staged huge public rallies like we saw in the past. Instead they’ve been smaller events in closed off streets.”
— Additional reporting by Vanessa Silva in Caracas
Bron: Financial Times