Caracas Chronicles

After the double blocking of the unitary candidates in March—first of María Corina Machado and then professor Corina Yoris—the initially provisional candidacy of Edmundo González, who is currently leading the polls, was accepted by the National Electoral Council. Hours before, a meeting between Machado, Zulia governor Manuel Rosales and the parties of the Unitary Platform had concluded in the unanimous designation of González as the opposition ‘s candidate. But the meeting’s composition was an unprecedented milestone of Venezuelan politics: five of the ten member parties of the Platform –not counting Machado’s Vente– were being represented by women.

The scene seemed to go against the trend set in the 2021 regional elections, which registered a decline in the number of women candidates and elected officials and resulted in a gender gap exceeding 90% in governorships and 80% in mayoralties. And it’s not an isolated event, as women seem to be taking the reins of opposition politics in the race towards the July 28th presidential elections.  

How women reached the top

In Venezuela, although the main opposition leaders are women, machismo continues to rule. “Politics, in general, is machista. Latin American politics even more so. Venezuelan politics, much more so,” says Carmen Beatriz Fernández, an expert in political campaigns. Political parties –as paternalistic structures– often relegate women to peripheral roles, where their voices are underestimated and where they face sexual violence, according to Natalia Brandler, president and founder of Asociación Cauce, which supports women in politics. 

Therefore, reaching power within a political party is not an easy task. Brandler mentions María Corina Machado, president of Vente Venezuela, and Delsa Solórzano, president of Encuentro Ciudadano, as examples: “These are women who had to create their own parties to be at the helm,” she says. 

For Brandler, in some cases, the rise of these leaders has resulted from crises or internal disputes within the parties: “The opposing male factions considered it convenient to have a woman in charge of the party for strategic reasons.” This phenomenon is known in gender studies as the “glass cliff,” explains Fernández: “When there have been complex situations, men have put a woman in charge to face the crisis.”

This is also the case for leaders like Adriana Pichardo, deputy national political coordinator of Voluntad Popular, and María Beatriz Martínez, president of Primero Justicia. Pichardo believes that, although her party has promoted female leadership, the renewal of leaders has also been due to the political persecution suffered by Voluntad Popular. “I think both things have played a role: my career and training, facilitated by my organization, and undoubtedly the persecution that has diminished stronger leaderships, focusing attention on less well-known leaders.”

Similarly, following the collapse of the interim government, Primero Justicia experienced an internal process and renewed its ranks in 2022, electing Portuguesa lawmaker María Beatriz Martínez as president. “The reality is that I had to take the reins in a very difficult time. I’m not fooling myself. Not everyone dares to lead in challenging times because there may be dangerous situations, and they simply don’t want to risk it”, Martínez says, “I think women, perhaps because of that maternal fiber to dare to be at the forefront, are the ones who take the step”.

There are notable cases, such as Andrea Tavares, secretary general of La Causa Radical, a left-wing labor party that is part of the Unitary Platform and where historically few women have been active. “Despite being a party with few women, it is not a machista party. I became secretary general without any underestimation”, she says, “but there are other strong leaders for whom it can be difficult to understand that certain things in the party need to be strengthened,” she asserts.

The reason these women now lead the opposition is not due to quota policies or impositions but rather to coincidence and frustration with traditional party elites. “It was time for a leadership change, a kick in the table,” concludes Solórzano.

Microaggressions

Delsa Solórzano spent ten years in the ranks of the Un Nuevo Tiempo party. She was a member of the National Assembly, director of the Human Rights Commission, and became national vice president. She was one of the few women in power positions within the party. During her time there, she says, she won three internal elections for higher positions. “They never gave me the position I won. The reason? Because I am a woman (…) One believes that the way to practice politics in this country should be by respecting human rights and moving towards equality. In traditional parties, that doesn’t happen,” the 2015 National Assembly lawmaker says.

Although traditional parties promote a discourse of equality in their statutes, like Un Nuevo Tiempo, this is not reflected in practice. “The masculine continues to have a higher value,” comments Brandler.

When Tavares was appointed secretary general of La Causa R, she already had decades of experience in local politics. She recalls her unpleasant first press conference, where, sitting next to Andrés Velásquez and Alfredo Maneiro, the party’s founders, her voice was not taken into account. “Each one wanted to explain to me how I should say things. After the press conference, I told them: ‘I don’t speak like Andrés, nor do I speak like Alfredo. I speak like Andrea, and I ask you to get used to it because I will speak like Andrea.’ The next day, none of my statements appeared in the media,” she says.

Gender aggression comes in various forms and sizes, even in comments. Tavares recalls when a Unitary Platform colleague questioned her role as a mother and leader. The comment still disgusts her: “Women are the ones who maintain the family, and you are always out on the street. You are not at home taking care of your family,” they told her.

Machado, the most prominent opposition leader in the country, has experienced this reality harshly since her days as a National Assembly member. Fernández recalls: “María Corina has personally experienced the machismo of Venezuelan politics for years of humiliation. Many times she was taken off the stage and seen with a mix of fear and contempt for being a woman.”

Consensus and mediation – no strings attached

In previous occasions, except for Henrique Capriles in 2012 and 2013, opposition presidential candidate appointments were not necessarily made through transparent or inclusive processes. Before the 2012 primaries, candidates were decided through closed door negotiations or unilateral decisions. 

Nevertheless, the 2023 primaries and the subsequent process of choosing proxy candidates has pleasantly surprised the population. The women of the Unitary Platform agree that they have merit in this. “We are used to seeing the same faces, the same fights, the same attacks,” says Pichardo. “We, I think I can speak for all, are women who do not come with a bill in hand for the mistakes of the past. Maybe women are more detached in terms of personal and even party interests. None of us put our organization, name, or interests above Venezuela,” emphasizes the leader of Voluntad Popular.

Solórzano believes that women have shown greater determination to achieve objectives. “(Women) have a different characteristic than I see in the men of Venezuelan politics. They [men] are more unstable in decision-making. A “yes” can be a “no”. It can be a “maybe”, “let’s see”, “depending on the situation.” In my case, “no” is “no”, period. This is the position.”

Deyalitza Aray, national political director of the political party Proyecto Venezuela, agrees that the role of women has been important for understanding in this political moment. “We have been able to intelligently and capably carry out agreements that have been offered to the country. We agreed to create the Platform, to create the National Commission of Primaries, and to choose the unitary candidate we have today.”

The change, however, was gradual. “It was not comfortable for parties and leaders who have known each other for years to have a woman suddenly come in (to deal with them). I think time, treatment, and obligation have changed that, but the difference is noticeable. This is the result of the way we relate, like the trust I have with María Corina Machado and the women of the Plataforma,” says Martínez.

10 presidential candidates, 10 men

Nicolás Maduro, Javier Bertucci, José Brito, Daniel Ceballos, Antonio Ecarri, Claudio Fermín, Luis Eduardo Martínez, Benjamín Rausseo, Enrique Márquez, and Edmundo González. These ten candidates, whose faces appear a total of 38 times on the ballot, are all men.

Not only did the government block the two candidates the Unitary Platform initially sought to register, but the “alternative oppositions” also did not promote the presidential candidacy of any woman. After the impossibility of registering Corina Yoris as a candidate, the Unitary Platform tried to register other women, but the blockade was total. “They did not accept any woman or any man. The regime’s plan was for the Unitary Platform and the MUD card to support Manuel Rosales,” says Tavares. “The government was convinced that the Platform’s candidate had to be a man with whom they could establish a rapport that would allow them to control the process. We prevented that,” emphasizes Solórzano.  “We always insisted that the [proxy] candidate had to be a woman”, Pichardo says. In fact, she explains, the opposition had prepared a long list of female candidates if the original proxy –and subsequent ones– were disqualified by the government.

Historically, Chavismo had women in high positions, with great responsibilities and quotas of power, although always subordinate to the central leadership of Hugo Chávez or Nicolás Maduro: from Tibisay Lucena, Luisa Ortega Díaz, Iris Varela, and Carmen Meléndez to Delcy Rodríguez and Cilia Flores. Currently, 8 of the 34 ministries in the government are held by women (including the Ministry of Popular Power for Women and Gender Equality). However, many voices agree that the government only instrumentalizes the role of women because it is useful for their interests.

“In the case of María Corina, there is obviously misogyny and gender discrimination because no regime official will allow themselves to lose to a woman,” says Tavares. “This is an absolutely machista, absolutely misogynistic regime,” adds Solórzano.

Today there are only six, tomorrow there will be more

Some of the women who are leaders today are already generating actions and creating spaces for new generations of women politicians.

Despite assuming her position in a turbulent time, María Beatriz Martínez sees three groups that could strengthen in Primero Justicia: women, youth, and people from the regions. Originally from Portuguesa, she began a work of training, formation, and empowerment, achieving that more than half of the municipalities in her state have female leaders in the party’s ranks. “I believe that the role we must play as women in power is to open doors for other women.” The formula implemented in Portuguesa has been replicated nationally. “We have opened networks of awareness and visibility,” she adds. Primero Justicia is the first Venezuelan party with a protocol for preventing gender-based violence.

Encuentro Ciudadano claims to have achieved parity. “Most of the women hold leadership positions,” says its president. “These positions were not won by being women, but by merit,” emphasizes Solórzano, who also highlights the party’s strict policy against gender-based discrimination and harassment.

In La Causa R, there is the initiative “The Women of La Causa R,” which functions as a space for discussing gender issues and conducting political training that promotes local and regional work. “To the women of the party in the regions, I ask that they not say they want to be the female secretary but that they say they are aspiring to be the general secretary,” says Tavares. Her goal upon leaving office is for at least 30% of representation nationwide to be women.

“We must strengthen by inspiring. We have shown that we can manage family time with our political careers. We have shown that we can make important decisions. In my party, Proyecto Venezuela, six of the leadership positions are headed by women,” says Aray. “It is not a favor we ask for nor a gift we are given; it is a right that there are women in elected positions.”