Caracas Chronicles

Among the obstacles facing Maria Corina Machado and the Venezuelan opposition, one towers above the rest: General Vladimir Padrino, the country’s defense minister, and a generation of middle-ranking officers who came of age during the Chavez years. It is unlikely that there will be any communication between Machado and Padrino. And it is unclear whether she could receive a hearing from even a faction of the armed forces.

Padrino has clearly brought cohesion and high morale to his troops, but his biggest creation will soon be tested. The groundswell of anger across the country included the toppling of Chávez’s statues, a sign of the collapse of Chavismo’s founding myth. If widespread calls for radical change in the streets continue, how long will soldiers still believe in their “Chávez Lives!” war cry? Will they and other high officers follow Padrino if he decides to undertake an even more repressive clampdown to keep Chavismo in power than what has taken place until now?

After decades of mainly battling middle-class protesters, National Guard anti-riot units and possibly Army units that might be needed to put down a more intense revolt will come from the same neighborhoods, even the same families, as the protesters. 

Given the new social dynamic, and if the stalemate drags on for months, is there a breaking point? Because there is also the possibility that a military culture of rewards, incentives, and fierce discipline over the last twenty years may keep soldiers loyal. In the early 2000s, Mr. Chávez, a career military officer, desperately needed fellow officers to reshape and run government ministries and institutions. Entitlement for the military was baked into the new state. 

Military privileges have become a grievance for regular people, but they are also the glue binding the armed forces. How much stress will that bond sustain before it breaks?

A barrage of U.S. indictments and bounties naming Padrino and several active and retired officers could significantly influence the situation. The question remains: is there room for a potential negotiation over the legal threat, or is their distrust so deep that they will fight to the death?

History’s green shadow

The critical role of the military is no surprise. Throughout Venezuela’s history, the military has taken a leading or supporting role in bringing about each new political era.

Rómulo Betancourt, the president who instituted Venezuela’s 20th-century democratic era, understood this well. Betancourt started his political career in the struggle in the 1920s against Juan Vicente Gómez, the iron-fisted general who ruled Venezuela from 1908 to 1935. He knew the only way to defeat Gómez and his military successors and bring about democracy would be from within the armed forces. By 1945, he aligned his party, Acción Democrática, with a classic military coup by middle-ranking officers.

He headed a provisional government and presided over the country’s first universal elections. When his close ally Rómulo Gallegos, the author of Doña Barbara, won the presidency in 1948, he lasted just ten months before the same middle-ranking officers struck again. The second time around, they decided to lead the government themselves, around the ambitious Marcos Perez Jimenez.

Betancourt, now in exile, eventually found a way back‌. By January 1958, Rear Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal ended a long line of dictators by overthrowing Perez Jimenez, the last general who would govern the country. While the coup was plotted within the military in response to massive protests in the streets, Betancourt flew back to Venezuela to push for fast elections.  

The adeco leader worked tirelessly to find support in a delicate dance, while Larrazabal was fighting a military plot to kidnap him in July and a full-fledged coup attempt against his government in September. Popular elections were finally held in December. Betancourt was elected and went on to preside over the build-out of an impressive liberal democracy.

Hugo Chávez, a retired lieutenant colonel who had orchestrated a failed coup in 1992, was also well aware of this history. He was obsessed with the power of active-duty officers in politics. After he was elected president in 1998, he never stopped traveling to meet officers and rank-and-file soldiers to tell them of his cherished vision of a fusion between the Venezuelan people and their army.

During his years as president, the culture of the armed forces was infused with a deep sense of nationalism. By 2005, Chávez had severed all ties to the US Department of Defense. While opposition politicians were looking to European and American schools for public policy inspiration, captains and lieutenant colonels were now steeped in the traditions of Los Llanos and the legends of warrior Ezequiel Zamora. By then, the relationships between officers and politicians from the traditional parties had been severed.

After Malvinas and Nicaragua

Now, as it was in the past, the military holds the key to any transition of power.

Even if street protests and a general strike reached an intolerable threshold for the status quo, it is difficult to imagine a scenario that did not involve the military. 

The situation might even result in a Chamorro-style proposal, as occurred in Nicaragua in the 1990s when Violeta Chamorro, the opposition leader, governed the country. At the same time, the Sandinista military maintained control of the army.

As disastrous as that outcome turned out for the Nicaraguan people, it might be the only option available to the opposition.

In such a hypothetical situation, the strangest cohabitation would ensue‌.‌ If the regime would allow the opposition to take over the executive branch, on one side would be Ms. Machado, who often invokes the memory of Margaret Thatcher while passing over her role in sending a British fleet to humiliate a Latin American army in the Falklands War. On the other would be Padrino, the die-hard nationalist in his third year at the military academy‌ during that conflict. Legend has it that at Fuerte Tiuna, everyone worked around the clock to send supplies to the Argentine armed forces, something he surely does not forget.

Machado and Padrino belong to the same generation but come from different worlds. Life has forced them sometimes to make pragmatic choices, but they remain firm believers in opposite worldviews.

The outcome of the present impasse remains ‌uncertain‌, but there is little doubt a painful and complex dance will take place before a new era is born.

Carlos Lizarralde is the author of Venezuela’s Collapse: The Long Story of How Things Fell Apart. He is based in Miami Beach and Mexico City.