After the Libertad operation: three possible scenarios for Venezuela

Juan Guaidó has achieved the first military uprising of today since taking office as Venezuelan Deputy President on 23 January. The military forces that responded to him released the leader of the opposition, Leopoldo López, under house arrest. That is, it was an operation without resistance. From an air force barracks, Guaidó and López, surrounded by soldiers, have called on the armed forces and civilians to carry out an insurgency against the regime of Chavista (it should be noted that Guaidó had already organized a march to Caracas until the Presidential Palace, as the final phase of the "Liberty" operation, to bring about the fall of the regime.

It is not only the moment of the greatest intensity of opposition for nearly 100 days that Guaidó's initiative lasted to overthrow Maduro, but also the most important issue that his regime has to face for five years he is in power. Last week, the US special envoy for Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, said that Maduro could not be negotiated and that his dismissal was prior to any agreement providing for free elections. He argued that this could not happen with him in power, as evidenced by the manipulation of the last elections, which falsified the will of the people by fraud. This insurgency takes place when abroad began to give the impression that Guaidó was stagnant and that the opposition was beginning to divide.

Now it is possible that Guaidó will succeed and that the regime will collapse, losing its military support, as it was requested since the beginning of the movement. The size of the rebel military sector is still uncertain. Guaidó hopes to expand it by mobilizing civilians in the streets, moving towards the barracks and forcing the change of position of the different units. He argues that in recent weeks, not only the armed forces have avoided repression, but also the National Guard, the police militarized, leaving this activity in the hands of para-governmental groups called "colectivos". We will now know whether it was a refusal to repress the uniform or a Chavismo tactic to reduce the international cost of repression.

The opposition plan provides for the army to have a similar stance to that of the Egyptian army in 2011, causing the fall of Mubarak or, this year, the sacking of presidents of the army. Algeria and North Sudan. This would imply that the highest military authority, the Minister of Defense, General Vladimir Padrino López, directs the dismissal of Maduro and directs the transition but is subordinated to Guaidó as president in charge of power.. Coexistence between the two would not be an easy process. Two weeks ago, Trump security advisor John Bolton urged Padrino López to end the crackdown and move to the opposition, but he failed at once. .

The other scenario is that the insurgency fails because the majority of the armed forces remain loyal to the regime and suppress the army and civilians in revolt.in the streets. This is the way Maduro took to denounce the insurgency as a coup d'etat. It will try to repress militarily, trusting the loyalty of the central commanders and troops, as was the case during the failed coup against Chavez in 2002. It is possible that the triumph of the regime happens in the shed blood, both among the military as among the civilians as they go out in the street following the call of Guaidó.

The triumph of Maduro would give way to a hardening of the regime, the detention of Guaidó, the leadership of the opposition and the prosecution for "treason to the motherland", a criminal character who has already been used to accuse the president Delegate and several members of the badembly This would lead to purges within the armed forces and the public administration. The Chavez regime would become more dependent on support from Cuba, Russia, Iran, Turkey and China. At the same time, it is foreseeable that the United States will strengthen the sanctions against the Venezuelan authorities and oil exports. Free elections would be buried in this scenario and Chavismo would look even more like the Cuban totalitarian regime. The prognosis of the UN according to which by the end of 2020, the country would have left 8 million Venezuelans would surely come true.

Scenario 3: Neither of the two forces in conflict has the power to impose, and then an armed conflict continues. These are the scenarios that the Chancellor and the Italian Chancellor publicly mentioned in February. The former warned against the risk of Venezuela becoming another Syria, as the warring parties gain international support, as would be the case in the United States for the Guaidó and Russian forces, from Cuba and Iran for Maduro. This is the most dangerous scenario for the rest of the region.

A day before this opposition uprising, Trump's national security advisor said that Russia should pull out of Latin America, clearly hinting at Russia's military presence in Venezuela. The arrest of Guaidó could give way to US military retaliation, prevented since the end of January. In turn, the US envoy to Venezuela (Abrams) insisted last week that all options remain open in this crisis, without excluding the military forces. Venezuela could thus become the most serious regional crisis since the second world war, exceeding that of the "cold war".

Whatever the case may be, Venezuela lives decisive hours not only for itself, but also for the region and for universal democratic values.

The author is a political badyst and director of the Center for Union Studies for the new majority.