Venezuela is facing a political crisis responsible for dividing its people and creating a scenario of economic, social, and humanitarian chaos. In 2024, president Nicolás Maduro, in office since 2013, has come out of the national elections a winner for a third term, but many countries around the globe are contesting the results.
Having not published the official electoral results due to a supposed hack on the electoral council website, Maduro’s victory was not recognized by the opposition, which claims their candidate, Edmundo González, was the real winner in the polls. Their position is backed by countries such as the United States, a historical opponent of the country’s policies.
According to research published by the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), about 51.9% of Venezuelans lived in poverty by 2023. To fully understand the issues faced by today’s Venezuelan society, though, it’s important to take a look back and trace a historical panorama that reveals a series of decisions and articulations decades ago with implications on the way their politics is shaped today.
The oil issue
When discussing the economic problems Venezuela has faced in the past decades, experts claim that oil dependence is one of the major issues with the country’s economy.The 916.445 km² land holds the biggest oil reserves in the world.
The first significant amounts of oil weren’t drilled until the 1910s, under President Juan Vicente Gómez ruling, but by then, the concessions for exploring the resource were already in the hands of major international companies. That meant huge profits were being made by the oil industry, but the reflections of it were not seen by the majority of the population, which by then lived in poverty.
That would change in the following years, starting with the death of Goméz in 1935. The people celebrated the now more systematic intervention of the Venezuelan State in the economy and in the oil industry, which led to mass urbanization and the conformation of new social subjects.
But with the possibility of importing everything else with the oil profits, the country failed to invest in other industries. That led to a high dependency on the international market for other supplies, favoring the speculative behavior of the elites who opposed measures to reduce imports. Industrialization remained incipient for most of the 20th century.
“There’s the consolidation of the oil economy, which destroyed the other economic sectors of the country, creating the basis for the lack of food sovereignty that ravages the country today, in the sense that it isn’t capable of producing food for its population”
states Carolina Pedroso, Doctor in International Relations by Unesp, Unicamp and PUC-SP, and researcher at the Institute of Economic and International Studies at Unesp.
In the 1990s, the decline in the oil price produced a serious economic crisis, leading the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to impose a series of reforms on the government. That resulted in a new opening of the oil industry, the privatization of the electric and banking sectors, and the concession of construction, maintenance, and management of roads to foreign companies. That evoked a series of intense protests, harshly repressed in an episode named Caracazo. The GDP per capita shrunk in the following years.
Hugo Chávez and the seeds for Maduro
In that context of crisis arose an important political figure of the late century. Hugo Chávez grew up in a country ruled by a two-party system that alternated between center-left and center-right presidents. The Pacto de Punto Fijo brought 30 years of political stability to a nation that had survived several state coups, being credited with launching the country towards democracy.
Still, the pact sank Venezuela into corruption scandals and developed a culture of clientelism that would eventually cause its deterioration. Other than that, it also kept the more revolutionary sectors of society away from power, often by not-so-democratic means. The oil prices had once again gone down, and the international intervention had proved itself a failure.
As a response to that came the Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario-200 (MBR-200), a civic-military movement led by Chávez that, in 1992, attempted a coup against the neoliberal government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, marked by popular dissatisfaction and economic decline. The coup itself failed but managed to shed light into Chávez and his ideas that would conquer several loyal supporters.
In 1997, he founded the Movimiento V República (MVR), and backed by a left and center-left coalition, was elected president of Venezuela with 56% of votes in 1998. His terms were marked by political reforms that earned the working class a protagonism never before seen. He approved a new constitutional text, with significant popular participation.
Now, the State holds 100% of the shares of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), the company responsible for the country’s oil production. The elevated price of the commodity in the international market allows him to invest in social welfare programs, and through his policies the poor gain wider access to health and education. That and his very charismatic persona help build the image of a leader.
Coup attempt in 2002
But popular support isn’t enough to maintain one’s undisputable power. His radical changes didn’t go unnoticed by the elites, who consolidated a strong opposition to his socialist-leaning government. The private sector saw his reforms as obstacles to foreign investment.
In 2002, he even suffered a coup attempt, orchestrated by his political rivals, but was soon restored to power. That revealed a more authoritarian facet of Chávez, who, in almost fifteen years in power, is credited with pairing the Judiciary and promoting censorship to opposition media outlets. To remain in the presidential chair, Chávez strengthened his position in office through political maneuvers such as allowing himself to run for reelection as many times as he pleased, backed by the support of the military.
“Chávez also complicated the lives of the opposition. In 2008, he created the figure of the government chief, who would be the de facto government in prefectures where the opposition had won in the polls. Other than that, there weren’t a few reports of coercion and intimidation of those who wanted an alternative to chavism. In the later years, the call-outs on persecutions and arbitrary decisions about the ineligibility of opponents that represented a threat to the government on the polls, such as Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo Lopez, grew” claims Marsílea Gombata in a recent interview the Doctor in Political Science at University of São Paulo (USP).
Even then, he still maintained decent popular support, managing to be reelected three times. His last term was marked by a decline in his health though, and on March 5th 2013, he died of complications surrounding a cancer. People flooded the streets to mourn the deceased president.
Maduro heightens the crisis
Following Chávez death, vice president Nicolás Maduro assumes the presidency. Special elections were held later that year, to appoint Chávez an official successor. Maduro came out as the winner, but not without controversies and the opposition contesting the results. Still, after the National Electoral Council (CNE) carried out an audit and claimed no error, he was elected president with 50.62% of the votes.
The new Venezuelan president came from a working-class and politically engaged family, which led him to advocate for leftist organizations from a very young age. He was a member of the previously mentioned MBR-200, and a supporter and close ally of Chávez in his following terms. That earned him high positions in the government and the blessing of the former president to continue his political agenda.
He inherited an office facing a decline in the exchange rate of the bolívar, the national currency. That affected the population’s purchasing power, especially when it came to buying food, as the inflation of foodstuffs became considerable. He promulgated laws to inspect the limitations on business profits and to fight capital and currency flight, deepening the control over the private sector.
The opposition struck back. With the new rise in government popularity, huge protests took place, demanding Maduro’s resignation (the movement became known as La Salida). The confrontations between government officials, Maduro’s supporters, and the opposition resulted in a number of deaths, left many injured, and arrests were also made. The cause for dissatisfaction would be the increase in life cost, the high crime rates, the corruption, and the shortage of basic products in the country. The society was polarized whilst a humanitarian crisis took place.
The government presented a plan to reduce the violence, whose rates were already increasing in the previous government. That included a disarming law and the control of guns and ammunition. Venezuela was being portrayed by international media as “one of the most dangerous countries in the world”, and the escalating violence was attributed to “high levels of corruption, low investment in the police force and weak gun control.”
The president would blame capitalism for the economic crises, citing speculation as the reason for the high rates of inflation and the widespread shortage of staples. During his term, he often resorted to the power to rule by decree, and would use that to address the economic crises, while being condemned by the opposition for “undermining democracy”.
His government suffered international sanctions that only worsened the state of the crisis for the population. Countries like the United States and Canada, plus the European Union and some Latin American countries, would impose a series of restrictions regarding Venezuelan assets, in response to reports on human rights abuses and the repression of democracy.
A 2018 Amnesty International report accused Maduro’s office of some of the worst human rights violations in the country’s history, specifically targeting the poorer communities through repressive military methods, supposedly to tackle crime. They counted over 8,200 extrajudicial executions between 2015 and June 2017. “The government of President Maduro should guarantee the right to life, instead of taking the lives of the country’s young people”, claimed Erika Guevara-Ross, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
Major controversies surrounded the president’s reelection in 2018. Some analysts claimed it to be a sham election, considering how prominent opposition leaders were barred from participating in it. In 2019, the opposition-majority National Assembly declared Juan Guaidó as acting president. The U.S. was quick to recognize the move, followed by other nations around the globe.
The Supreme Tribunal of Justice (TSJ) would reject the decision, freezing Guido’s assets and prohibiting him from leaving the country. Maduro would continue to control the state institutions during the presidential crisis that divided the nation in support of both leaders and lasted until 2023.
Where the people stand and what’s next for the country
“It’s a population that, in those 25 years of chavism, stands very divided. That means, even with all the problems, Maduro has an important support base in society, estimated between 4 and 5 million people, but there’s also a strong opposition to him that probably overcomes that number”, claims our interviewee, Pedroso.
“The current opposition is very heterogeneous, but its dominant core today is led by María Corina Machado. She was always the more radical and violent, but the moderates were either persecuted and barred from acting or lost credibility with the population for trying to negotiate with the government at some point”, she continues. She points out that a right-wing opposition is the one prevailing in that group.
In the current electoral dispute, the specialist argues that the political control of the country is at stake. “If the opposition rises to power, that can put the political (or even literal) survival of the current leaders at risk and an end to a project of power that defends the sovereignty of these resources [especially the oil]. About the lack of transparency regarding the electoral polls, she defends it implies the confirmation of a long-time distrust regarding the lack of commitment by the government that all the powers are, in fact, independent.
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The article above was edited by Beatriz Gatz.
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