Caracas Chronicles

For years now, we’ve taken to assume that the situation in Venezuela will not change. The inevitability of change had been wiped from the Venezuela conversation and replaced by a stagnant pond of hopelessness. Every violent turn by the government to hold on to power was met with a forced expression of resigned knowledgeability about the nature of the people holding on to power: “Why are you surprised?”

Today, we’re at the crest of an unprecedented moment. We’re about to witness something that we haven’t seen before—what in Venezuelan soap opera-speak we call an etapa cumbre (which is different to the etapa final, of course). This country has seen such moments many times along the last couple of decades: from the unexpected death of the allfather of Chavismo to the opposition’s landslide victory in the 2015 legislative elections. These were moments that reeked of transition and that the group holding on to power in Venezuela was able to flip—turning opportunities to democratize the country into hard turns toward authoritarianism. 

It feels as if all these unprecedented moments had the same conclusion, bringing people back to the stagnant pond of hopelessness. “Nothing changes, why are you surprised?”

But the truth is that on many levels Venezuela has indeed changed. The dynamics of power within the government have morphed, as well as those within the opposition. Chavismo’s power structure has shifted at many levels, and while it may not seem like it, they’ve been renovating their mid-level leadership—revealing the scars of some good old government infighting. Also, some of their incentives have changed too. After twenty five years, Chavista elites have deep roots in Venezuelan society. They’ve started to mix with old elites, and with a strong grip around economic power they’ve also become exposed to the whips and scorns of markets.

Support for Nicolás Maduro is quite low, as we’ve seen from polls. It’s the worst pre-election polling in Chavismo’s history. But also keep in mind that reducing the country’s population has worked marvels for the government. And it works particularly well for elections. As we discussed in our Political Risk Report on July 11th (How Maduro Can Win), the worst case scenario is one in which Maduro suppresses enough votes to get a “clean” win. You can download this particular report for free here. This is, of course, a marketing ploy. Do consider a subscription, though, the PRR is the lifeblood of this blog.  

The opposition also changed. Opposition leadership has been held in different moments by different individuals and parties. The two factions of Primero Justicia had their turns at the bat with Henrique Capriles as the opposition candidate against Hugo Chávez and Maduro in 2012 and 2013 (two presidential elections in less than a year, unprecedented!) and Julio Borges at the helm when the opposition took the legislature in 2015. UNT’s Manuel Rosales was the candidate against Chavez ages ago and AD’s Henry Ramos Allup pulled the rug from under Primero Justicia when he became Speaker of the National Assembly in 2016. Then, we had Leopoldo Lopez’s Voluntad Popular leading the charge with the interim government strategy, which we will not comment on any further. And now, it almost feels as if Maria Corina Machado was called from the dugout after being at the fringe of opposition politics. Viewed as a radical for many years—not so much for her ideological views as for her opinions on how to deal with Chavismo—she was able to reignite the political fire in the country. And how? She, too, changed her strategy by being like water and turning folks toward voting polls no matter what Chavismo comes up with to discourage voters.

The global strategy after “maximum pressure” shifted toward a more flexible approach, because the world stage also changed. Foreign administrations changed, wars erupted, and corporate interests started getting bullish on Venezuela (a devalued “bullish,” but bullish alright).

It’s a hard fact that ignoring Venezuela is a dumb strategy. Ignoring an impossible situation doesn’t make it go away. The impact of Venezuela’s crisis on the region has had deep consequences. Perhaps one of the most significant variables of the past 20 years in the Americas (one of, because there was that pandemic event too) has been the downfall of Venezuela.

If you have any kind of interest in Venezuela, be it sentimental or economic, you have to binge the heck out of this etapa cumbre. And this is what we offer you:

1. We’ve revamped our team for the July 28th coverage. Ahead of the elections we’re working on different angles and opinion pieces. There are many variables in the air that make the outcome of July 28th hard to predict, but this won’t deter us from trying. Check out our coverage under the #etapacumbre tag.
2. Follow our live coverage on El Feed, we will be fishing out stuff from other corners of the intertubes and we will be featuring them there. This is the reason why this tool was built.
3. Our social media team will be providing live updates via Twitterx with the arepa emoji and video updates on Instagram.
4. Our Political Risk Report team is working around the clock to get scoops and insights from sources within Chavismo and the opposition.

How can you help?

• Subscribe to the Political Risk Report.
• Donate!
• Share and comment our #etapacumbre coverage.
• If you feel that you have something else to offer (talent, insights, sponsorships, tequeños, cachitos, etc) please shoot us an email at [email protected]

This doesn’t end with the elections, though, things will get even more interesting after the 28th. Again, I encourage you to watch closely. Something unprecedented is about to happen.