The issue of recognizing Maduro and Guaidó continues to be the big difference, even within the opposition.
The Venezuelan crisis continues to be one of the biggest problems in the region, and this 2022 in its first vote marked an “end” of support for the Government in the cradle of Chavismo: the state of Barinas.
Nicolás Maduro acknowledged on Thursday that the repetition of the elections in Barinas, birth state of Hugo Chávez, held on January 9, was “a total success” for the electoral system of the Caribbean country. This, after the votes of November 21 were annulled when an opposition candidate was winning.
Now the opposition Sergio Garrido, after defeating Jorge Arreaza (who was Chávez’s son-in-law), will be in charge of “governing” Barinas, which was also governed by the father and two brothers of the late president from 1998 to 2021.
For the Venezuelan journalist Jesús Hurtado, what happened in Barinas was a surprise, because they did not expect such a massive vote, which showed once again that if the opposition goes out to vote, it wins. Therefore, in the future, we should think about how to overcome the abstention and dispersion of candidates.
“It is a victory with fourteen percentage points above the opposition candidate against the official candidate. What if this changed the landscape? Well, in a way yes. It can be used by the opposition to say that by joining an election they can win and have an opportunity to change the government, as long as the conditions are met (for a fair election) for people to go out and vote,” says Hurtado.
As expected, after being sworn in as governor, Garrido met this week with Maduro as an act of recognition of his government, despite the fact that the opposition does not consider him a legitimate president, because that, as has happened in other cases, gives it some internal maneuverability. Although some sectors of the opposition are against it.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan analyst Daniel Varnagy says that there is not much impact on what happened, precisely because of the recognition of the political system that Maduro presides over.
“In these circumstances, in which Venezuela is holding elections, it is very difficult to think that an opponent who is absolutely opposed and who is willing to quarrel with the central government can win… (although) without a doubt it generates internal movements in both groups. On the one hand, the opposition is taking up the theme of the discourse on the value of the vote, despite the fact that there is no independence of the institutions; and Chavismo is taking up the concept of internal reorganization at the national level and, in particular, at the regional level, where it has been losing proportionally more support than it is having in Caracas,” says Varnagy.
This doctor in Political Science and professor at the Simón Bolívar University adds that the most important thing is to know if the governorships and municipalities that are in the hands of politicians and opposition parties can exercise their functions, and that is a problem that has been with the so-called “protectorates” put by the regime.
“If an opponent wins, he has two options: one is that, if he recognizes Maduro, he will not have the protectorate over him, but he will have to work in harmony with ideological and pragmatic elements of the central government; and, of course, if he does not recognize it, he is going to have a protectorate over him that is going to prevent him from carrying out the real management of the public policies that they would like to implement in the areas of power… In Venezuelan realpolitik it does not seem that We are facing a scenario of change in terms of governability and governance,” says Varnagy.
Maduro has referred to the congratulations that the United States offered after the opposition victory and said that with them they also recognize the electoral power, the country’s Armed Forces and him as head of state.
Last Monday, the US diplomatic representative for Venezuela, James Story —who operates from Colombia—, applauded the opposition victory in Barinas and pointed out that “the disqualifications of opposition candidates, media censorship, voter intimidation and other authoritarian tactics could not subvert the will of the voters”, recalls Eph.
On the other hand, the Venezuelan head of state reiterated to the members of Parliament his request that the actions of the group led by the opposition Juan Guaidó be investigated, from the Legislature, after they met on the night of January 4 to reaffirm the opponent as “interim president” of the country.
That January 4, the so-called “unitary platform of the opposition” agreed to support an extension, until December 31, 2022, to the “interim presidency” of Guaidó, which several anti-Chavismo figures have opposed and the United States. supports, while other countries or the European Union itself recognize him only as an “opposition leader.”
Guaidó proclaimed himself president in charge in January 2019, when he was also leading Parliament, which then had a large opposition majority, protected by a particular reading of the Constitution that allowed him to be president for 30 days, with the premise, among others, of convening some elections that never came. (I)
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