Anniversary of Election Fraud Sees Maduro in Firm Control

Crisis Group expert Phil Gunson assesses the Venezuelan government’s staying power despite its unpopularity

President Nicolás Maduro is celebrating a sweeping victory in Sunday’s local elections in Venezuela, exactly a year after declaring himself the winner of a presidential election that, according to all available evidence, he lost by a landslide. From hiding, opposition leader María Corina Machado insists that Maduro is “on the ropes” and the country is “at boiling point”. In reality, it is the opposition that is divided and in disarray. In May the government acquired control of every state governorship except that of tiny, rural Cojedes, and all but a handful of National Assembly seats. On Sunday it rubbed salt in the wound, leaving just 50 (out of 335) town halls in opposition hands. Days earlier the administration of U.S. President Trump handed Maduro another win, permitting Chevron Corp to resume oil production in Venezuela despite sanctions.

The local election results, like those of July 2024, do not reflect the government’s popularity. They stem from deep public disillusionment with an electoral system in which, as many say, “you vote but you don’t elect”, as well as from calls for abstention by the Machado wing of the opposition and the much weakened Unitary Platform coalition. Over 70 per cent of the electorate stayed at home on Sunday, allowing the government to take even an historic opposition stronghold like the western city of Maracaibo. Fear also plays an important role: over the past year the government has stepped up repression, jailing moderate opposition figures, academics, journalists and even relatives of activists.

Once able to mount demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of protesters, anti-Maduro forces now admit that even small-scale political meetings require strict security. Human rights organisations, themselves under severe government pressure, put the number of political prisoners at over 850, around 50 of whom are being held at unknown locations. Forced disappearances, denial of due process and routine torture, along with a raft of laws that virtually outlaw dissent, have had a chilling effect on opposition activism. Opposition politicians who insist on participating in what they acknowledge are not fair elections find themselves tarred by the hardliners as collaborators.

Machado’s barely veiled calls for the military to overthrow Maduro appear to fall on deaf ears. And while the Trump administration insists it does not recognise him as the legitimate president, it negotiates with him over the heads of the opposition. The new Chevron licence, which will mitigate but not reverse Venezuela’s economic collapse, appears to be a quid pro quo for the recent release of remaining U.S. prisoners held in the country. The subsequent designation of Venezuela’s so-called “Cartel of the Suns” (not a cartel but shorthand for military involvement in drug trafficking) as a “terrorist organisation” headed by Maduro himself may mollify some in the opposition. But “regime change”, as Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela Richard Grenell made clear months ago, is – at least for now – not on the U.S. agenda. Maduro may have lost last year’s election, but one year on he is still the one uncorking the champagne.