Venezuela in Maduro’s hands

Translated by Irene Cecchi

Nicolas Maduro took the oath on January 10th 2025 for his third mandate as President of Venezuela, in a day that was not about rejoice and celebration but mostly characterized by paranoia and the obsessive need to control the civil society. In fact, according to the opposition and part of the international community, Maduro lost the past elections, held on July 28th.

We know that because, despite the National Electoral Council declared the victory of Chavez heir, the opposition collected the election machines’ reports which showed that Edmundo Gonzàlez Urrutia gained 67% of votes. We know that because, thanks to Chavez, Venezuela has one of the most transparent voting systems: despite “the Commander” distorted the Venezuelan democracy until it couldn’t be defined like that anymore, he enjoyed widespread popular consensus, also due to the rich oil resources and the related economic proficiency. This situation allowed him to remain legitimately solid, without the need to rig the vote. But Maduro is not Chavez, he never managed to reach the popularity of his predecessor.

When last summer the Venezuelan population was called to choose the future of their country, he insisted for a change. A change that was denied. Before the results came out, people were wondering how Maduro could win since the exit polls showed a wide advantage in favour of Urrutia and the day passed without significant incidents. The answer reiterated in the last months is a firm denial of the loss, without any proof of the result.

The answer to the protests in the streets has been brutal repression and detention of demonstrators and journalists, among political opposers of course.

Urrutia, who was given the choice of prison or exile, decided for the second one and escaped to Spain where was granted political asylum. The leader of the opposition party “Vente Venezuela”, María Corina Machado, who conceded space to Urrutia after being prohibited to run, stayed home. This was another example that underlines the problems of the regime facing reality.

After 133 days in the background, criticizing Maduro only through social media, Machado appeared back in the streets the day before the oath, fostering the President’s fears. As a consequence, she was incarcerated for a few hours and then set free. But the police forces deny the event and accuse her of having made that up for publicity.

In this atmosphere, January 10th arrived and Maduro’s oath with it, an oath that marks the start of his third mandate, until 2031. An atmosphere of a closed Country, with a hundred thousand bounty for those who have any news on Urrutia coming back, a decision that has been postponed for a better moment to fight for the change that the people of Venezuela claim. It’s a change that seems necessary since Maduro takes over again a Country destined to decline, a Country living in a deep crisis that pushes its people to flee abroad.

But Maduro seems sure that trading Venezuela’s wellbeing for power it’s worth it and wagers on the consensus among military forces rather than the population. When asked for a change, the President answered anticipating Christmas in the attempt to ease the internal tensions, an attempt that seem to have failed according to the situation in the streets of Caracas.

The Venezuelan leader is currently very isolated from the international community but can still rely on a few countries that share the same trust in democracy. In fact, while the US set a 25 million dollars bounty for Maduro’s detention and the European Union doubled the sanctions, some congratulations to Maduro arrived, from leaders all over the world that have a complex relations with reality too. Among them, Vladimir Putin, who renewed his felicitations with the Venezuelan President after the declaration of July when he said he was faithful that “his activity as leader would continue to benefit their progressive development in every sector” and also that “it completely satisfy their people’s interests and it’s in accordance with the aim of creating a world order that is more fair and democratic”.

As paradoxically as it sounds, the same Maduro talked about democracy on January 8th in front of the Parliament, while announcing the will to start a set of constitutional reforms. The aim would be to transform “this Country into a truly democratic one, a Country of the people for the people and with the people”.

Even considering that the word “democracy” has different meanings in every culture, it’s impossible not to notice the clash between the President's speech and the actual political situation in Venezuela today. Either way, authoritarian leaders’ favourite sport has always been to bend reality to their will.

“If I win fine, otherwise I win either way” is what Maduro seems to be saying to the opposition that now finds itself in the difficult position of trying to keep hope alive in the Venezuelan people. The 2018 elections were contested too but with a good mix of populist rhetoric and repression he managed to keep the power.

The risk of a deja vu is high, just like the risk of a failure of the international community’s pressure who was hoping for a different final, a scene in which Edmundo Gonzàlez Urrutia takes the oath in Caracas with a different atmosphere, among real celebrations.

The Nicolas Maduro regime is part of what Anne Applebaum, in her essay “autocracies”, defines as Spa Autocracy, meaning a net of authoritarian countries that share the only interest of keeping the power and get richer, denying their people the possibility to affect the society in any ways. This means that in hard moments there's a support net, so Maduro is isolated but paradoxically he is not alone in it. By his side there is Russia that, during the years, granted big loans to Venezuela and invested a lot on its oil industry.

This doesn’t mean that the Country will go through this difficult phase of its history thanks to its partners, also considering that Vladimir Putin is currently busy on other fronts, but evidently this is not the main interest of leaders like Nicolas Maduro.

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