Venezuela begins an election year full of unknowns: will it be the end of Chavismo?

President Nicola Maduro Will he seek re-election in Venezuela? When will the elections be? Will the opposition María Corina Machado run?

Venezuelan politics is full of questions as the 2024 elections begin.

While the Chavista president maintains the mystery and does not confirm whether he will run – even if his closest friends and his fiercest enemies take it almost for granted – the year begins under the banner of uncertainty and a crisis turbulent political climate.

Here are some keys to understanding what awaits us in the coming months.

When will the elections be?

This is one of the unanswered questions. They are scheduled for the second half of the year, but the electoral authority has not yet set a date.

In negotiations mediated by Norway, the government and opposition agreed that single-round presidential elections will be held in the second half of 2024, under the control of the European Union and other international actors.

Washington, the protagonist of this process, then lifted the sanctions on Venezuelan oil, gas and gold for six months, conditioning them however to open spaces for transparent elections.

Maduro, who has ruled Venezuela since 2013, was re-elected in 2018 to a second six-year term in elections unknown to more than 60 countries, including the United States, among others. fraud reports.

“The government has been very weakened by international isolation,” political analyst Ricardo Ríos told AFP. “They managed to overcome the lack of recognition and the need to maintain a more or less polished image.”

Will Maduro run?

The Venezuelan president He said it was “premature” to confirm this if he will seek re-election.

“Only God knows… No Diosdado, God,” Maduro told the Telesur channel, in a play on the name of former vice president Diosdado Cabello, number two in the ruling party. “We hope that the electoral scenarios are defined. We will make the best decision”, he promised.

Cabello said that Maduro will be the candidate of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) in 2024, the year in which Chavismo celebrates 25 years in power.

The comment “was a political joke by Maduro,” said Ríos, who sees the president as “a sign of unity” within the ruling party. “very divided” and not very popular.

“He has been campaigning for more than a year, the mere possibility that he is not the candidate would be evidence of a tremendous crisis,” said political scientist Luis Salamanca.

Maduro, in fact, was the protagonist of the campaign for a referendum that claims Venezuelan sovereignty over the oil-rich territory of Essequibo, controlled by Guyana, and which analysts saw as a thermometer of the mobilization. According to official data, ten million voters participated in the consultation. questioned by the opposition and experts due to the absence of queues at polling stations.

Will María Corina Machado be able to appear?

Opposition leader Machado triumphed in the primaries of the main opposition platform, with more than two million votes (more than 90%), but disqualification from public office for 15 years.

The former parliamentarian challenged this sanction in the Supreme Court as part of a mechanism created under pressure from Washington as part of the dialogue process. The court doesn’t have time to decide, which puts his candidacy at risk.

“If María Corina Machado could legally participate in the elections, there is no doubt that she would win,” Salamanca estimated. “But I have many doubts, I see a tendency for the regime to maintain itself and not allow a challenging candidacy.” It would therefore be the end of Chavismo.

The opposition comes to the elections weakened by years of divisions, Therefore, it is possible that leaders far from traditional leadership will enter the race, many of them labeled as collaborationists.

The economic situation

Maduro usually congratulates himself on Venezuela’s “economic recovery”, when the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimated growth of 4.5% in 2023. Other private companies, however, have revised their projections and now they are talking about stagnation.

The country has been in eight years of recession in which their GDP collapsed by 80% due to the collapse of their oil industry. But it saw a recovery in 2022, after the abolition of strict economic controls, which led to informal dollarisation reduction in inflationalthough it is still one of the tallest in the world.

The easing of sanctions and the return of big oil companies could have a positive impact.

“We expect the economy to expand by 9.7%” in 2024, Asdrúbal Oliveros, director of the financial company Ecoanalítico, underlined in a podcast. “It will be felt in the oil sector, but also in commercial activity.”

Although he also warned that it will be a year of great uncertainty, precisely because of the elections.

Source: AFP