Elections in Venezuela: predictable victory for Madu …

From Caracas

“We have a new National Assembly elected by popular vote, a great victory for democracy, for the Constitution,” President Nicolás Maduro said in the wee hours of the morning after the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced the results of the election. legislative.

Indira Alfonso, president of the electorate, reported that with 82.35% of the votes counted, the turnout was 31% of the electoral lists, for a total of 5,264,104 votes. Of this total, the Great Patriotic Pole, led by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, reached 67.6% with 3,558,320 votes, the alliance Acción Democrática, Copei, Cambiemos, Avanzada Progresista and El Cambio obtained 17.95% with 944,665 votes, the alliance Venezuela Unida, Primero Venezuela and Voluntad Popular Activistas obtained 4.19% With 220,502 votes, the Communist Party of Venezuela obtained 2.73% with 143,917 votes, and 6.79% of the vote went to “other” parties.

The result was long overdue after a day when one of the central axes of the debate was what would be the total participation. The right which did not participate had affirmed since the afternoon, without evidence, 80% of abstention and, as one would expect, affirmed that the result announced by the CNE represented a fraud.

It was a complex choice, marked by several factors. First, a difficult economic situation, under the American blockade, marked by several years of difficulties, where 2020 was particularly marked by critical moments of gasoline shortage in Caracas, problems of basic services, such as water and electricity, price increases and dollar.

Second, the competition was marked both by the call for abstention from a sector of the opposition, as part of a group of international political and media actors, mainly from the United States (USA) , from the Lima Group countries, the European Union, which for months called for not voting and carried out diplomatic and economic pressure actions on the opposition leaders who stood for the elections.

Third, it was an election as part of a general picture of usury, both in politics and economics, the two being linked. The last five years have been marked in the country, in addition to the economic situation, by a succession of episodes of great confrontation, such as 2017 or 2019, the result of an opposition strategy that sought to overthrow the government.

As pointed out by the opposition Enrique Ochoa Antich, who claimed that there had never been fraud in previous years, “each victory (of the opposition) served to build up forces for the presidential elections of 2018 , but we derailed and threw the game away. ” Going off the road meant periodically attempting vigorous actions, until the strategy of parallel institutions was developed, which began in 2017 with a “Supreme Court of Justice in exile”, and led to the creation of the ” interim presidency ”In 2019.

What part of the opposition decided, the one that presented itself, is to return to the electoral path, for which these elections were the first great example of participation. The result, of just over a million votes, indicates that this opposition, made up of old actors, party fractures and new formations, has failed to significantly translate its progressive political centrality into the votes.

As for Chavismo, who had obtained 6,248,864 in the presidential election, he had a decrease in the number of votes, as well as the ability to maintain a large volume, in a very complex scenario, to obtain a majority in the National Assembly. .

The 31% turnout was lower than in the 2018 presidential election, at 46.1%, but higher, for example, than in the 2005 legislative election, when the opposition decided to back down. refrain from participating, thus initiating a repeated tactic that, so far, has not brought results of political accumulation. That year, turnout represented 25% of the voters list.

As expected, Guaidó’s opposition claimed for itself a victory following the abstention, and under this speech it again called the vote in the “popular consultation”, which will be done via a phone app. and in person the same day. 12. The consultation will be the mechanism for constructing a discourse that legitimizes the maintenance of the “interim presidency”, which enjoys public bipartisan support in the United States.

However, both the holding of the “popular consultation” and the announcement that will result from it, do not answer the question of what will do the sector which still maintains with Guaidó after January 5 – the day when the new National Assembly – in particular due to its dependence on the United States, where a change of administration and possible changes in approach to the Venezuelan dossier are underway.

Capriles Radonski, who at first was going to participate in the legislative elections, and finally marched on the decision of the European Union, described the initiative of “consultation” as “a call for mobilization without tangible solutions”. This lack of horizon in Guaidó’s appeals is one of the main factors that explains why his social base and political capital have systematically eroded for more than a year and a half.

In this context, several events are already irreversible. The first and foremost is that there will be a new National Assembly from January, something will change the national political situation. This Assembly will urgently aim to address the economic situation, which will involve possible internal agreements and dialogues with the United States, which supports the blockade. Another fact seems irreversible: the formation of a new opposition which, although it obtained less votes than it thought, is an actor that will mark part of the future dynamic. This opposition, which will surely be joined by more actors, will contest the elections for mayors and governors in 2021.

Finally, the general result of the vote, and in particular the abstention rate, puts on the table the need to address issues such as the renewal of speeches, political dynamics, in the context of a protracted conflict that has left deep imprints on society.