Caracas Chronicles

The ‘being of force’ is plural, it would be completely absurd to think about force in a singular sense —Gilles Delezue

Almost in unison, two initiatives symptomatic of our leadership crisis were launched: VEN, promoted by María Corina Machado, and Venezuela Decide, whose most visible faces are Henrique Capriles and Andrés Caleca.

Both proposals are strikingly optimistic. VEN speaks of a bright chapter awaiting the country—even though the dictatorship shows no sign of ending. Venezuela Decide insists on the power of voting—even though, in practice, elections have been abolished.

One detects in these proposals a certain disconnection from reality, but not as much as if they ignored that, to be successful, they need to show themselves as something more vast, inclusive and complex than what they are.Thus, Venezuela Decide presents itself as a combination of unions, civil and political organizations, whilst VEN, well, VEN claims to embody “millions”.

The result is a feeling that our political leaders—more than facing difficult circumstances—are stuck in obsolete routines. Without elections, Capriles appears useless. Machado, though more versatile, remains chained to a familiar script of motivational rhetoric, magical thinking, and a messianic faith in U.S. intervention.

This isn’t a coincidence or a personal shortcoming. It’s a symptom of a political culture that has reached its limits—and overcoming it may be the only way forward.

The decline of political firms

Particularly revealing is VEN’s almost mystical claim that the dictatorship is an illusion—that it is not a “real power.” Gnostic overtones aside, this isn’t  just a question of marketing. VEN is, for all intents and purposes, a Machado brand not only for her party (Vente Venezuela) but for a political movement that, like Chávez’s in the past, is inseparable from its figurehead.

This model isn’t new. In the 20th century, civil society was shaped under the tutelage of large party bureaucracies, where politicians, businesspeople, and unions coexisted—especially under the Puntofijo system. In that model, politics became a mere profession, not an expression of citizenship.

Since the 1990s, that profession has been almost exclusively reserved for elites. Venezuelan political parties have mutated into firms, offering “leadership and representation services” to the citizenry. Bureaucratic parties had bosses; political firms have owners.

What should have started back in 2014—a shared leadership model including various social and political actors—never took root. The combination of repression, collapse, and disorganizing efforts by political firms made it impossible.

First among them were the firms of Henrique Salas Römer and Irene Sáez (and arguably CAP’s last bid). All were ultimately crushed by Chávez—the founder of the most successful political firm of all—who denounced oligarchy only to create his own ruling elite and privatize the state.

Since then, we’ve had the Machado-Parisca and López-Mendoza camps versus the Chávez-Cabello-Lacava-Maduro coalition. Personal ambitions and interests are part of any political project, but in the case of the firms, those ambitions and interests are the project, and their members are only competent when it comes to making them grow. Ample experience shows how their mindset, their calculations, their entire perspective is shaped by the firm—and when they build alliances, it is only to dominate and absorb other forces.

This has profound consequences.

The hollow cry for “Unity”

On April 5th in the U.S., over 1,200 mass protests were held against Donald Trump and Elon Musk, organized by hundreds of groups including the Service Employees International Union and Greenpeace. Just weeks earlier, U.S.-based lawyers and activists had mobilized to stop the deportation of Venezuelan TPS-holders.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, soccer fans joined retirees in their protests, offering support and protection.

This kind of cross-sectoral coordination is normal elsewhere. In Venezuela, it seems unthinkable or at least far away. The reason isn’t just repression—it’s the absurd belief, inherited from Puntofijo, that “politics” is reserved for political parties and therefore that only parties can be political actors.

What should have started back in 2014—a shared leadership model including various social and political actors—never took root. The combination of repression, collapse, and disorganizing efforts by political firms made it impossible.

This door is still open: the potential to organize a broad, citizen-driven opposition capable of renewing our political ecosystem—not just in name and face, but in method.

Traditional politicians still see the struggle against the regime as a one-dimensional, short-term campaign—waged by their own organizations alone. “Unity,” in this context, is just code for dominance. It sounds noble, but in Venezuela, “unity” means submission.

It’s no accident that it was Chávez’s favorite word.

The alternative to autocratic or oligarchic unity isn’t fragmentation—it’s a coordination of opposition forces. But to achieve that, we must dismantle the castrating dynamics of political firms—not by excluding parties, but by preventing them from controlling movements and defining agendas.

In short: to free ourselves from the dictatorship, we must also free ourselves from the traditional opposition.

Toward a Coordinator of Democratic Struggles?

Today, the most legitimate opposition actors are groups like the Movement for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, retirees, and university professors. This door is still open: the potential to organize a broad, citizen-driven opposition capable of renewing our political ecosystem—not just in name and face, but in method.

In theory, it wouldn’t be difficult to create a pragmatic “organization of organizations” that would coordinate diverse opposition activities and actions. A Coordinator of Democratic Struggles, which, unlike previous experiences with “coordinators” and “fronts” monopolized by parties or limited to people with ideological affinities, could be a broad, operational and pragmatic alliance, without being limited to a certain type of organization or a certain type of ideology: simultaneously an opposition against the dictatorship (because it fights to make it unviable, impossible) and against political parties (because it intends to remove them as the controlling force of the opposition).

We are faced not only with limitations in terms of the willingness and preparation of Venezuelans for large-scale organizing, but also with repression and economic and social collapse, which will surely be accelerated by the new sanctions. And of the three factors that weaken us—state repression, disorganization by traditional elites, and societal collapse—the latter is the most devastating.

In this sense, perhaps the firms are about to deal with the final blow to the possibility of an autonomous opposition in Venezuela: Machado, who at this point is an extension of the MAGA movement, insists on encouraging sanctions and on the metaphor of asphyxiation, that the dictatorship will fall if it is deprived of resources. As a good determinist, in addition to refusing to take into account the non-linear impact of sanctions on the economy, she fails to understand that the dictatorship, specialized in trafficking, may not be totally deprived of resources. Machado’s thesis is, in reality, the same scoundrel thesis of former ambassador Brownfield: to accelerate the collapse. But what happens if the country collapses, not the regime? What happens if a total societal collapse similar to that of Haiti occurs?

At this decisive moment, the lack of imagination of elites incapable of imagining anything new could make any form of democratic struggle impossible, or perhaps we would have to rethink it as part of a different one, one for collective survival in the Venezuelan Archipelago.

Imagining and materializing this struggle for freedom, which is also a struggle for survival, may be our task in the coming years. But to do that, we must first free ourselves from our own so-called freedom fighters.