Venezuela at a Tipping Point

The political crisis in Venezuela is reaching a fever pitch. After the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Nicolás Maduro the victor in the elections on Sunday, July 28, the right-wing opposition came out with their own number and records contesting the CNE’s verdict and calling their candidate Edmundo González Urrutia the winner. 

Mainstream U.S. media outlets, as expected, openly criticize Maduro’s government and support the right-wing opposition. A sector of the left continues to defend Maduro and claims the elections were fair and transparent. It is hard for people outside Venezuela to make sense of this rapidly changing situation amid so much noise. 

Silence reigned throughout the country on the morning of July 29. There were no celebrations or signs of disapproval. However, at mid-morning, the silence gave way to the sounds of banging pots and pans, and a few hours later, to the mobilization of thousands of people in different areas of the country. These included, notably, the working-class and poorer neighborhoods of what is known as Greater Caracas, driven by the widespread feeling among the population that there had been fraud. Since so many people were tired of years of dealing with an anti-democratic regime and starvation, they knew there was no way Maduro scored an overwhelming electoral victory. 

These protests probably took both the Right and the government by surprise. Sunday night, right-wing opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado and Edmundo González Urrutia had declared that they were not calling for people to take to the streets. The government responded with harsh repression that was particularly violent in the working-class neighborhoods later on Monday. By Tuesday, July 30, the Right took advantage of the situation and channeled the spontaneous demonstrations towards its own interests, organizing rallies nationwide particularly in the middle-class neighborhoods where it has its traditional social base. 

Since the night of July 29, larger contingents of military and police officers have been arresting, harassing, and brutally beating up protestors, acting in collaboration with paramilitary groups sponsored by the government, the so-called “colectivos,” which could be seen firing firearms in the middle of the protests. Since the crackdown began, at least 2,000 protesters have been arrested, and hundreds of illegal house raids have been reported. Maduro even said in a press conference he would like to send detained protesters to do forced labor, “to build roads, like in the old days.”

Venezuela Between Imperialist Pressure and Chavismo

To understand the situation in Venezuela today, we need to go further back. Maduro is the successor of Hugo Chávez, a center-left military officer and politician who ruled the country between 1999 and 2013. He won the elections in 1998 after a convulsive period of protests against neoliberal economic policy that shook the country and, as a consequence, he built his following around a strong anti-imperialist rhetoric, state intervention to appropriate part of the oil rent, and progressive social and economic policies funded through oil extractivism. 

Although Chávez’s policies helped reduce inequalities in the country, his aim and achievements have been grossly exaggerated inside and outside of the country. Although he called his program “socialism of the 21st century,” ownership of companies remained in private hands, except for some high-profile nationalizations, always with generous, market-value compensations for the owners. Throughout his 14 years in power, he never failed to pay the foreign debt. 

Furthermore, Chávez’s project did not involve building democratic mechanisms for participation, leaving the working class and the oppressed excluded from the decision making. Instead, it was characterized by a top-down rule, concentrated in his own personality, the control of the state in the hands of a single party — the United Socialist Party of Venezuela — and ultimately reliant on the armed forces that backed him. Most leftist organizations were co-opted by Chavismo, and if not, they were targeted by repression. For instance, although the Right had political representation, a deeply antidemocratic electoral law made it impossible for left organizations, typically with fewer resources, to present a candidate in these elections. 

After Chávez’s death in 2013, Maduro took over as interim president and won the elections later that year. Soon after taking office, the price of a barrel of oil plummeted, throwing the Venezuelan economy into a downward spiral. Maduro sought to get out of the crisis by launching a brutal austerity plan against working-class people, favoring big capital and corporations. In 2018, the economic plan put forward by Maduro caused a drastic drop in the minimum wage, which fell to 3 dollars per month on average. Salaries never recovered. 

Under Chavismo and imperialist pressure, Venezuela has plunged into what’s considered the deepest economic crisis of the 21st century of any country in peaceful times. More than five million Venezuelans have left the country (roughly 20 percent of its population in the early 2010s), and hunger, unemployment, and poverty have reached unprecedented proportions. 

Imperialist intervention in the shape of sanctions took a leap first in 2017 and then in 2019, when the United States confiscated Venezuelan offshore capital assets and liquid capital bank accounts worldwide. The rationale for U.S. sanctions on Venezuela (just like the embargo on Cuba) is to submit the Venezuelan people to increased suffering and poverty, with the purpose of sparking or enhancing discontent against the government, facilitating its ousting. These measures were intensified during the coup attempt where the bulk of the Right aligned itself with Juan Guaidó and Trump saw the opportunity to finally impose a regime change in Venezuela.

As Milton de Leon, leader of the Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (LTS), affiliated with the Trotskyist Fraction, explains: 

Millions of Venezuelans have fallen into extreme poverty, while a handful of old and new rich people have consolidated their position in the country. What Milei is trying to do in Argentina, Maduro has already done, which is why I have been saying that the Argentine “libertarian” should envy the Venezuelan president. If María Corina Machado’s candidate, Edmundo González, were to come to power, he would already have a large part of the dirty work done.

The Authoritarian Course of Chavism and the Current Election 

As the ability to offer concessions vanished, the government resorted more and more to coercion to maintain its rule. Against the backdrop of a protracted economic crisis, Maduro’s government following Chávez’s death has been marked by increased bonapartism and repression. It is no surprise, then, that there is an enormous social discontent with the government today. The widespread perception that the government has committed fraud ignites a legitimate and justified anger among vast masses of people who, on Monday, took to the street to protest despite the fear of repression.

The popular mobilizations in defense of democracy (or at least, the very minimum expression of it: the recognition of their vote) are nevertheless being capitalized by the Right. In the face of such blatant fraud, leaders of the conservative Plataforma Unitaria Democrática have managed to present themselves as the champions of democracy, even though they have been consistent advocates for military coups and foreign interventions against previous, legitimately elected governments. 

María Corina Machado (MCM), the most recognized voice among the right-wing opposition, has consistently supported every attempt to oust Chávez or Maduro by force since the beginning of Chávez’s mandate. She supported the U.S.-backed 2002 coup, in which the then democratically elected president was arrested by the military’s high commands and replaced by business mogul Pedro Carmona, until mass mobilizations forced the restitution of Chávez to power. In 2004, she championed a national referendum to oust Chávez again, and after losing by almost 20 percent of the vote, she claimed fraud and dismissed the official results. More recently, in 2019, she supported not only Juan Guaidó’s failed coup attempt but advocated for U.S. intervention in the country. Because of this last public intervention, she was banned from running in these elections. She therefore hand-picked Edmundo González Urrutia, a 74-year-old former diplomat, to head the presidential ticket. 

It is no wonder that, now, once again, MCM is calling the armed forces to “side with the Venezuelan people” — after all, she had no qualms in calling for a coup against democratically elected governments. But the armed forces have been loyal to Chávez ever since the failed 2002 coup, and they have shown no sign of withdrawing their backing of Maduro. Venezuela is entering new terrain after the July 28 elections and what appears to be an unabashed fraud. The ostensibly solid support for Maduro can evaporate if enough working-class people mobilize in a sustained manner. 

But the working class and the international Left should have no hopes in either Maduro’s government or the right-wing opposition. In fact, a coalition of left organizations in Venezuela have coalesced during this election cycle behind the campaign “The working class has no candidate.” The participating organizations, Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo (LTS), Patria Para Todos (PPT-APR), Marea Socialista (MS), and Partido Socialismo y Libertad (PSL), stress in a common statement that the government and the bourgeois opposition share the goal of eroding workers’ rights and imposing conditions of super-exploitation, as well as their support for police violence against the youth, and the support for anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ religious groups (Maduro started courting evangelical churches, providing funding, supplies, and radio air to thousands of churches since 2023, in an attempt to win their support for these elections). As LTS leader Ángel Arias states during the press conference, “all candidates, despite their differences, represent the interests of businessmen and big merchants, of transnational companies and bankers.” 

International Pressure Intensifies

As the days go by and the government fails to produce the official vote counts, pressure from foreign actors on Maduro intensifies. The condemnation from the U.S. and what we could call its regional “front organization,” the Organization of American States (OAS), was predictable. Anthony Blinken stated in a press release on Thursday, August 1, that “Edmundo González Urrutia won the elections.” OAS General Secretary Luis Almagro urged Maduro to recognize his defeat, but a roll call at OAS permanent assembly failed to rally enough votes in favor of demanding an immediate publication of the official voting records. 

Center-left governments in the region have been in a bind since the announcement of the election results. Governments friendly to the Maduro administration have struggled not to question the unconvincing results provided by the Venezuelan government, while at the same time rejecting any foreign intervention. Presidents Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (Mexico), Gustavo Petro (Colombia), and Luis Inacio Lula Da Silva (Brazil) have issued a joint statement demanding the publication of all voting tally sheets and the verification of the results by an impartial party. 

More recently, the U.S. State Department moderated its position by stating that it does not yet recognize González Urrutia as the president of Venezuela, and that it supports the mediation proposed by governments of Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico (with whom, El País reports, is in close coordination efforts) for a negotiated transition of power. The departure from a hardline regime-change approach needs to be understood in the context of a declining U.S. influence in the region — with an increasing presence of China — as well as an attempt to drive a wedge between Maduro and other center-left Latin American governments.  

No Easy Way Out

Venezuela is at a tipping point. No matter what the resolution of this conflict will be, we are witnessing an acceleration of political events. Maduro can only continue in power through an intensification of the repression, a taste of which is already happening. On the other hand, if some kind of transition is agreed upon, the right wing in government will try to implement a program that would result in the erosion of workers’ rights and a regressive redistribution in favor of domestic and foreign capital. 

The Venezuelan people are in a quagmire without a clear way out. U.S. sanctions have caused immense suffering over the past decade and should be the first target of U.S. solidarity efforts with Venezuela. In addition, no matter how rigged or questionable an electoral process might be, we must always oppose foreign intervention: hands off Venezuela! This, however, should not imply support for Maduro’s government. Part of the Left in the U.S. adopts a “campist” position, which means that they support any political leader who places themselves (even if it is more rhetorically than in reality) in the opposite “camp” as U.S. imperialism. The PSL, among others, is an example of this. But it goes even further: oblivious to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the PSL extols Chavismo as an example of a “revolutionary” path toward socialism. By supporting Maduro’s rule, this Left is legitimizing a government that not only is authoritarian and antidemocratic, but also, crucially, it has passed austerity policies to preserve capitalist profits and shows no qualms in repressing working-class activism and the Left. It is an obstacle in the fight for socialism. 

The international Left, while giving no support to the pro-coup Right, has to take a clear stance in opposition to Maduro, especially at a time when his government unleashes brutal repression against social protests. In the face of the grotesque degeneration of Chavismo, the Left will have to draw conclusions from this experience and work toward building an independent, working-class, and socialist project.