On Sunday, a stricken Venezuela, still reeling from an economic crisis that has resulted in the largest forced displacement crisis in Latin America, will vote to choose a president for a new six-year term beginning on January 10, 2025. The current president who has presided over this economic collapse, Nicolás Maduro, is running for his third consecutive term, having first come to power in March 2013 as the designated successor to the late Hugo Chávez, who launched the Bolivarian turn in Venezuelan politics in 1999.
Mr Maduro’s presidency has led to a significant economic decline in Venezuela, pushing millions into poverty, persistent high inflation and severe food shortages. According to the UNHCR, more than 7.7 million Venezuelans have left the country to become refugees and 6.5 million of them (84%) are in Latin America and the Caribbean. This number is higher than the number of migrants fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Syrian civil war. While most migrants – 2.9 million – have fled to neighbouring Colombia and 1.5 million to Peru, more than 240,000 have made dangerous journeys such as crossing the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama to enter the US through the Mexican border
How did it all go so wrong for a country that just a decade ago was touted as a pillar of “21st century socialism” and a model for redistributing wealth from a thriving petroleum extraction industry to pro-poor programs like schooling and housing under the charismatic “Bolivarian” regime of Hugo Chávez? Indeed, when Chávez died of cancer in 2013, Venezuela had a household poverty rate of 33.1% and an extreme poverty rate of 11.4%, down from 61.5% and 30% respectively in 2003. Meanwhile, the 2021 figures have risen to 82% and 53%, respectively.
Critics of Mr Maduro blame the dire economic situation on his dictatorial stance since coming to power. Some believe the economic collapse was inevitable as Venezuela is highly dependent on the petroleum sector – crude oil accounted for 95% of the country’s exports in 2014 – and the collapse in oil prices that same year made it even worse.
Chávez’s supporters – the Chavistas – argue that the regime increased grassroots participation in politics, exemplified by high voter turnout in popular elections, and created cooperatives, while using the proceeds of the extractive economy to fund programs that benefited the poor. And while the regime was conscious of diversification, its lack of diversification during a period of falling oil prices led to an economic crisis, exacerbated by a series of economic sanctions imposed by the US and the EU after Mr Maduro came to power.
The Donald Trump administration first imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan government in August 2017, blocking the Venezuelan government from accessing US financial markets, a move that affected Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA. The US imposed even more direct sanctions on PDVSA in 2019, preventing it from paying for petroleum exports to the US, freezing its US assets and cutting off the supply of diluents that help refine Venezuela’s heavy crude oil, among other measures.
The economic sanctions imposed by the United States were compounded by restrictions imposed by the European Union in 2017 on arms and materials traded with Venezuela, sanctions that remain in place.
Relief in restrictions
The country got a reprieve when the US eased some sanctions, including releasing political prisoners, following an agreement signed between Mr. Maduro and representatives of opposition parties in Barbados in October 2023. In fact, the country’s oil production increased, resulting in more exports and partially easing the severity of the economic situation. However, in April 2024, the US announced that sanctions on the oil sector would be reimposed because prominent opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was not allowed to participate in the presidential election.
Critics argue that the seeds of economic decline were sown during Chávez’s rule, as he sought to create a personalist state with powers concentrated in the executive presidency by eliminating the remnants of the country’s liberal democratic system. After an attempted coup against Chávez in 2002, Chávez sought to rewrite the rules of power in the country, moving it away from what observers saw as an inflexible and ideologically one-party system (a byproduct of the Puntofijo Pact between political parties in 1958). Chávez introduced a number of measures, including constitutional referendums and structural changes, most of which had popular support as Chávez won several elections. But after the economic crisis, these structures of power were used by his successor to strengthen themselves.
Mr Maduro is a former bus driver and as a trade union activist he represented bus drivers of the Caracas (Venezuela’s capital) metro system. In the early 1990s, he joined Chávez’s social movement MBR-200 (“Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200”) and campaigned for Chávez’s release after his arrest following a coup attempt in 1992. Mr Maduro was one of the founding members of the “Movement for the Fifth Republic”, which supported Chávez’s candidacy for president in 1998 and later became a parliamentarian representing Chávez, including as speaker in 2005-06. After serving as foreign minister from 2006 to 2012, he was named vice president in October 2012 and was Chávez’s designated successor when he died of cancer.
Since coming to power, Mr. Maduro’s regime has moved away from a popular rule that relied on grassroots mobilization and participatory democracy, towards an authoritarian system. Here, military personnel were given privileges, so much so that researcher Thomas Posado claims that “more than a third of governorates, a quarter of ministries, and at least 60 public companies, are handed over to military personnel.” [the military]Elections during Mr Maduro’s tenure have not been free and fair, resulting in widespread discontent and abstentions even among his supporters. The regime has been accused of using repressive measures against protesters despite the economy in crisis.
Constitutional crisis
Following a constitutional crisis in 2017, when the government-backed Supreme Tribunal of Justice dissolved the opposition-led National Assembly, turnout fell significantly in the 2018 elections that returned Mr Maduro to power. Juan Guaidó, a prominent opposition leader, was unilaterally declared acting president by the opposition-dominated National Assembly and promptly recognised by the US, Canada and other Latin American countries. That recognition, notably by the US, effectively ended in 2023 when opposition forces voted to dissolve Mr Guaidó’s “interim government”.
Following the Barbados agreement, an opposition primary election was held in late 2023, which Ms Machado won. But she was later disqualified by the Supreme Court for her role in supporting Mr Guaido. Ms Machado has now backed former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia as Mr Maduro’s main rival in the July 28 elections.
Opinion polls in Venezuela are considered unreliable, but many say Mr Maduro is trailing. The incumbent president has also warned that there will be “bloodshed” if he loses. Mr Maduro has tried to use state agencies to intimidate opposition supporters and leaders during the campaign, but this appears to be a desperate measure for an unpopular president who is losing support among the core segment of the poor who once supported and even deified the ideology of Chavism.