The run-up to the July 28 general election is not looking good. Italy, an authoritarian socialist state, has barred the country’s most popular politicians from running, blocked EU observers from monitoring the vote, and harassed opposition candidates and their supporters.
Still, the opposition and its U.S. backers are hoping for a landslide victory for Edmundo Gonzalez, who currently holds a double-digit lead in opinion polls, that could force Maduro to negotiate a peaceful transition of power.
“A year ago, the opposition would have said none of this is going to happen, that the opposition will never unite, that the administration will never recognize the elections,” said a senior U.S. administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to rules set by the administration. “I think the fact that we’ve come this far is important evidence that the efforts are paying off.”
U.S. and Venezuelan officials have resumed talks as the election looms, with U.S. diplomats trying to protect the election and some of Maduro’s leftist allies pressuring him to accept the results.
Negotiations are more urgent than ever. If Donald Trump is elected president, this rare window of opportunity would likely end. During Trump’s first term in office, the United States recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, Maduro severed diplomatic ties, and Washington increased sanctions.
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For Biden, a victory would be a rare foreign policy win to carry into his reelection campaign: It could allow some of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who have fled Maduro’s dictatorship to return home. It could also alienate Venezuela from friendly nations Russia, China and Iran. And it could give the U.S. greater access to vital oil sources.
The opposition hopes that a strong stance will force Maduro to the negotiating table.
“I believe our margin of victory will be so overwhelming that it will create a new political reality in the country and create room for negotiation,” opposition candidate Gonzalez told The Washington Post.
“That may be wishful thinking,” says the 74-year-old former diplomat, but he says it’s the only kind of initiative he’s willing to take.
Forced to play an unfair game
Maduro has ruled Venezuela since the death of his mentor Hugo Chavez, founder of the country’s socialist state, in 2013. By the time Biden took office, he had weathered Venezuela’s economic collapse, millions fleeing the country, street protests, a shadow government, riots aimed at ousting him, a U.S. indictment on narco-terrorism charges and an attempted armed coup. U.S. sanctions have deepened the country’s economic crisis but have failed to oust Maduro.
So last year, the administration tried a new approach: a deal. In closed-door talks in Qatar, U.S. negotiators agreed to suspend crippling sanctions on Venezuela’s state-run oil and gas industry in exchange for Mr. Maduro’s promise to hold competitive presidential elections this year under international supervision.
But draft documents obtained by The Washington Post show that the administration’s proposal is much broader and bolder than initially disclosed: If Maduro complies with all the conditions, the United States would lift virtually all of the economic and financial sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.
The Qatar talks produced a landmark agreement between Maduro’s government and the opposition, with Maduro promising to allow parties to nominate candidates of their choice, invite international observers and set the date for elections.
Then in January, Venezuela’s Supreme Court, controlled by President Maduro, ruled that his main challenger, Maria Corina Machado, was ineligible to run for office. The 56-year-old former congresswoman had won an opposition primary with more than 92% of the vote.
U.S. officials made it clear to Maduro’s negotiators that the Qatari offer would not come to fruition if Machado was barred from the elections, and oil sanctions were reinstated in April.
Former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Bill Brownfield said the U.S. agreement was “looser than it should have been.”
“Maduro got all the benefits he was due up front in exchange for promising to be compliant in the future,” Brownfield said. “He didn’t comply, but he got what he really wanted.”
The opposition parties, Negotiations with Qatar. Machado said, look Details are unclear, but Brownfield, despite only having a supporting role, “I understood how to use it. [the deal] “We’re going to make the most of it.” She remains the face of the opposition, drawing crowds at rallies across the country.
David Smilde, a sociologist at Tulane University who studies Venezuela, sees this as a major success for Biden’s outreach, which has drawn the opposition back into electoral politics.
“The opposition is finally doing what they’ve been told to do for years,” he said: “Stay in the game, even if the game isn’t fair.”
For a while, Maduro seems ready to follow the example of Daniel Ortega. The Nicaraguan dictator has shut down independent and foreign organizations, jailed or exiled virtually all political opponents, and Allows for presidential elections.
By contrast, Maduro has agreed to face off against opposition candidates in a vote that will have at least some international observers, including the European Union but not the Atlanta-based Carter Center, and a U.N. panel of experts that will draft a confidential report for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Carolina Jimenez Sandoval, director of the Washington Office on Latin America, sees progress this way: “Even amidst the terrible repression in Venezuela, She said, “It’s cracked.”
Hope for a peaceful transition
What if Maduro loses the vote? Western Hemisphere leaders, including some of Maduro’s friends, are urging both sides to prepare for a peaceful transfer of power. Colombia’s first leftist president, Gustavo Petro, is lobbying Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, also a leftist, to lead the negotiations.
Petro has spoken with Maduro and some members of the opposition this year about offering some form of immunity from prosecution to the losing side, a proposal that could be presented to voters in the upcoming election, according to a senior Brazilian diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions. Referendum On the day election.
Lula told Petro he would support the approach if both sides supported it, the official said. But both sides rejected it. Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo said he was keeping diplomatic channels open.
Economist Victor Alvarez, a former supporter of Chavez, has promoted the proposal that Maduro be appointed a life member of the National Assembly and given parliamentary immunity.
Tamara Tarachuk Bronner, who directs the rule of law program at the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, is studying whether U.S. authorities could offer legal incentives, such as shorter sentences, to allies of Maduro involved in drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption.
“This is a dirty conversation,” she said, “but there’s no clean way out of this mess.”
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who narrowly lost to Maduro in the 2013 presidential election, wants to see Washington play a role.
Capriles said Maduro would have to step down from the presidency to give up power. It would lead to prison. “The U.S. would have to intervene.”
Andres Issara, a former minister under Chavez, said a transition of power would only be possible if Maduro was forced to step down or if military leaders agreed to negotiate a withdrawal.
“The price of leaving Miraflores, the presidential palace in Caracas, is too high,” Issara said.
Gonzalez has said he is willing to negotiate a transfer of power with Maduro, that he will not persecute his opponents if he wins the vote, and that he will give Maduro’s party seats in the National Assembly.
“We hope that the government will have the political maturity to accept the electoral defeat and allow a new government to take power,” Gonzalez said. “If the defeat is as crushing as we hope it will be, he will have no other choice.”
Marina Diaz contributed to this report. Schmidt reported from Bogota, Colombia, and DeYoung from Washington.
