🇻🇪 Pressure on Venezuela

Venezuela has been in a democratic and economic crisis for over a decade now. It's only intensified since last month's election.

It’s been a grim few weeks in Venezuela. Which, given how the last decade has been for the country, is really saying something.

At the end of July, Venezuela held its presidential election. The government of President Nicolás Maduro, in power since 2013, claimed victory with no proof. The opposition – led by María Corina Machado and candidate Edmundo González – has, for its part, released vote tallies demonstrating a landslide victory against the regime.

Over two weeks later, however, and Maduro looks no closer to exiting power. The dictator has imposed sweeping bans on social media and messaging services such as X and WhatsApp, while government forces (and allied paramilitary forces) have carried out sweeping crackdowns on protestors and political enemies. Over twenty people have been killed thus far, and over 2K arrested and incarcerated.

As expected, the regime’s declaration of victory has received support from many of its most faithful allies, including Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua in the region and China, Iran, and Russia overseas. But it’s the Maduro friends who have not backed his tally that are worth looking at.

The Americas denounce Venezuela’s election

Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico are the three largest Latin American countries by population. They’re also each run by leftist presidents who have historically been Maduro allies. And yet, the leaders of all three – Brazil’s Lula da Silva, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador – have each called for greater transparency and a clarification of election results.

This by no means represents a complete international isolation of the Maduro regime just yet. But these three leftist heavyweights – as well as the roughly ten Latin American countries that have recognized the opposition results and subsequently seen their diplomatic ties with Caracas severed – demonstrate that this time, the region isn’t just accepting business as usual.

Notably, the United States has been taking more of a backseat to the Brazilian-Colombian-Mexican discussions with Maduro. While Washington clearly declared its support of the opposition, no doubt the Biden administration seeks to avoid a repeat of the 2019 presidential crisis, which deepened instability but failed to dislodge the regime in Caracas.

We don’t know how this ends—indeed, no one does. But we will note that not a single one of the countries that has recognized Maduro’s claim to victory today holds a sizeable Venezuelan population. They have avoided the refugee crisis that has gripped nearby Andean countries like Colombia and Peru for years now.

Venezuela lost its huge economic promise

Decades on from its once-proud position as one of the world’s wealthiest countries —ranking above Japan, France, and Spain — Venezuela has been unable to emerge from the chaos and crisis of the 2010s. Countries such as Chile, once poorer on average, have since far surpassed Venezuela in criteria such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. And it’s clear that there won’t be an end to the disaster, to the suffering, until Maduro has left power.

The Venezuelan people have experienced a prolonged economic depression, shortages, hyperinflation, disinvestment in economic sectors such as oil and social sectors such as health and education, as well as the abandonment of the rural areas of the country. Today, the Venezuelan people are hungry for a change toward democracy and a return to their once-promising future.

We send solidarity to our readers fighting to reclaim their country.

Comment of the Week 🗣️

Carlos Dumois speaks of Cuba’s medal success. Some truth to his statement: Cuba placed 4th in medal count in Moscow 1980 and 5th in Barcelona 1992. Sadly, Cuba’s 9 medals performance this year is the worst in decades. Still, the country continues to be an outlier in Olympic achievement in the region, second only to Brazil in medal count.

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