Venezuela faces a crucial decision: re-elect Maduro or opt for the opposition after 25 years

The future of Venezuelans is at stake. Voters will decide on Sunday whether to re-elect President Nicolas Madurowhose 11 years in power have been marred by crises, or whether they give the opposition a chance to make good on its promise to reverse ruling party policies that caused an economic collapse and forced millions to emigrate.

The parties of a traditionally divided opposition have united around a single candidate, which poses a challenge to the United Socialist Party of Venezuela his biggest electoral challenge in a few presidential election over several decades.

Ripe He faced the former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutiarepresenting the revived opposition, and eight other candidates. Supporters of Maduro and Gonzalez celebrated the end of the official campaign with huge demonstrations in the capital, Caracas, on Thursday.

In the past, Maduro and his allies have overcome challenges by disqualifying rivals from running in elections and branding them as out-of-touch elitists aligned with foreign powers. But this time, the ruling party has allowed the Unitary Platform, the coalition of the main opposition parties, to participate in the vote.

An agreement that allowed the opposition to participate gave Maduro some relief from the suffocating economic sanctions imposed by USABut that relief was short-lived. President Donald Trump’s government Joe Biden reinstated the sanctions, citing increasing government repression of real or perceived adversaries, including vetoing the candidacy of opposition star Maria Corina Machado.

Here’s what you need to know about the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela.

Who is the opposition candidate?

The most repeated name of the campaign was not on the ballot: María Corina Machado. The former legislator became a star of the opposition in 2023, filling the gap left by the exile of an older generation of opposition leaders. Her criticisms of government mismanagement and corruption mobilized millions of Venezuelans to vote for her in the opposition primaries in October.

However, the government of Ripe declared the primaries illegal and opened criminal investigations against some of its organizers. It has since issued arrest warrants for several Machado supporters and detained several members of her team, and the country’s highest court backed the decision to disqualify her candidacy.

But she has continued to campaign across the country, turning the veto of her candidacy into a symbol of the disenfranchisement and humiliation that many voters have felt for more than a decade.

She has supported Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutiaa former ambassador who has never held public office, which has helped unify a fragmented opposition.

Both are campaigning together and promising economic reform that will bring back the millions of Venezuelans who have emigrated since Ripe became president in 2013.

Gonzalez began his diplomatic career as an adviser to the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States in the late 1970s. He was stationed in Belgium and El Salvador and was Caracas’ ambassador to Algeria. His last post was as ambassador to Argentina during the presidency of Hugo Chavez, which began in 1999.

More recently, González worked as an international relations consultant and wrote a historical work on Venezuela during World War II.

Why is the current president in trouble?

Maduro’s popularity has waned due to an economic crisis caused by falling oil prices, corruption and government mismanagement.

Maduro can still count on a core group of diehard supporters, known as Chavistas, who include millions of public officials and people whose businesses or jobs depend on the state. But his party’s ability to use social programs to win votes has waned as the economy has collapsed.

He is the heir of Hugo Chávez, a popular socialist leader who expanded the welfare state in Venezuela while clashing with the United States.

Suffering from cancer, Chavez chose Maduro to serve as interim president after his death. The president assumed the role in March 2013 and the following month narrowly won the presidential election called after his mentor’s death.

Maduro was re-elected in 2018 in an election widely seen as a sham. His government banned popular opposition politicians and parties and, with no level playing field, the opposition urged voters to boycott the vote.

That authoritarian tendency was part of the US argument for imposing economic sanctions that blocked the country’s oil industry.

Who will vote?

More than 21 million Venezuelans are registered to vote, but the exodus of more than 7.7 million people due to the prolonged crisis — including some 4 million voters — is expected to reduce the number of potential voters to about 17 million.

Voting is mandatory and is done using electronic machines.

Venezuelan law allows people to vote abroad, but only about 69,000 voters meet the criteria to vote at embassies or consulates in these elections. Costly and laborious government prerequisites for registration, lack of information, and mandatory proof of legal residency in a host country prevent many migrants from registering to vote.

Venezuelans in the United States face an insurmountable obstacle: Consulates, where citizens abroad would normally vote, are closed because Caracas and Washington cut diplomatic relations after Maduro was re-elected in 2018.

Under what conditions are elections held?

Freer and fairer elections seemed possible last year when Maduro’s government agreed to work with the U.S.-backed Unitary Platform to improve electoral conditions in October 2023. An agreement on electoral conditions gave the government broad relief from U.S. economic sanctions on its state-run oil, gas and mining sectors.

But a few days later, authorities said the opposition primaries were illegal and began issuing arrest warrants and detaining human rights defenders, journalists and opposition members.

A United Nations-backed committee investigating human rights violations in Venezuela has reported an increase in government repression against critics and opponents ahead of elections, subjecting its targets to detention, surveillance, threats, smear campaigns and arbitrary criminal prosecution.

The government has also used its control over media outlets, the country’s electrical grid and other infrastructure to limit the reach of Machado-González’s campaign.

The growing crackdown on the opposition prompted the Biden administration this year to reinstate sanctions it had suspended in October.