On the agenda of the conversation table between delegates of the Nicolás Maduro regime and the Venezuelan opposition, the issue of free and democratic elections has generated enormous differences between the parties, also showing that the two sectors today have -at different levels- divisions internal.
Today somewhat fragmented, that idea that the Venezuelan opposition is the only one that is divided in the face of a unitary regime, has been far away. Chavismo, as Alonso Moleiro reports from Caracas, in As it isnor does it enjoy unbreakable cohesion.
This week, some minority parties that have accompanied the Nicolás Maduro regime have criticized the monopoly of the government party, the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela), and the few spaces that it grants to debate the country within the illegitimate Assembly National Constituent Assembly, structured by the regime.
Meanwhile, the opposition does not seem to be united either. The departure of Juan Guaidó from Venezuela last Tuesday, forced by the regime’s persecution against him, shows that the interim government he has led no longer has as much power and various opposition sectors have begun to propose new formulas to confront the dictatorship.
Chavista purism
Leftist governments tend over the years to show their fissures, even more than the right. The Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende had more than ten parties in coalition, while Manuel Azaña in the Second Republic in Spain invited anarchist and communist sectors to his socialist government. In both cases, the coalition imploded, with tragic consequences.
With enormous differences, Hugo Chavéz grouped different sectors of the Venezuelan left around his populist project. Until his death (2013) he maintained unity, with small differences with moderate sectors of traditional parties and popular organizations.
Llegacy to power, Maduro broke the unity within Chavismo. Leader of an authoritarian regime, he has surrounded himself with the Rodríguez brothers, Delcy and Jorge, Nicolás Padrino and the number two of the regime, Diosdado Cabello. They manage the PSUV and the military forces, they are the brains of the regime, and they limit the spaces for discussion, as the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) has denounced.
The president of the PCV, Óscar Figuera, has denounced this week in the illegitimate National Constituent Assembly that there is a plan orchestrated by the PSUV to judicially take over the traditional communist party of Venezuela.
The fight between the two strongest parties of Chavismo dates back months. From Havana, Héctor Rodríguez, a member of the communist board, criticized the Maduro regime. “That of Venezuela is a concrete experience that reveals the limits of progressivism”, he said. From there the clash broke out.
Figuera’s complaint in the illegitimate Assembly is preceded by the persecution against two other parties, Patria para Todos and Podemos, which received judicial orders that demanded their closure, after presenting criticisms of the regime.
Lonely, the Socialist Party begins to run out of political allies. With the events of this week, he has shown that he does not seek to keep the unpopular Chavismo politically united. Little is known about the internal disputes within Maduro’s Sanhedrin, but it is estimated that, as things are going with allied groups, within the olive green regime it is possible that fissures with other sectors are emerging.
end of internship
Not far from its genesis, the opposition does not enjoy unity either. Guaidó’s commitment -who came to be recognized as interim president by more than 50 countries- is beginning to falter. In search of a new strategy for the possible primary elections this year, some sectors believe that the young opposition leader should step aside.
From Florida, where he will presumably stay for a season and then return to Venezuela, Guaidó spoke this Thursday against Maduro and Gustavo Petro and clarified that he is still the leader of the interim. “Today the best candidate to defeat the dictatorship is unity,” he said.
Several opposition leaders such as Henrique Capriles and María Corina Machado spoke out from Caracas against the persecution against Guaidó. “Our solidarity with @jguaido, his wife, his little daughters, family members and members of his team. No Venezuelan should be pressured to leave their country,” Capriles said on Twitter.
These messages of solidarity do not mean that the unity government led by the young leader will continue to be the main strategy to get the regime to release political prisoners and call free and democratic elections.
Far from this reality, the opposition put an end to the interim government of Guaidó on December 30, 2022 and since then each party has begun to present its candidates for the possible primaries in October of this year.
The United States has also taken possession of the Venezuelan embassy in Washington on the grounds that once the interim government has ended, Venezuelans do not have a legitimate representative within North American territory. This can be applied in other international instances where the then interim government took possession of goods and assets from Venezuela.
In temporary exile, the figure of Guaidó no longer seems to be so relevant. Old and new voices begin to sound to take the spokesperson for an opposition that came to summon the four most important opposition parties (G-4) (Voluntad Popular, Primero Justica, Un Nuevo Tiempo and Acción Democrática) and other forces. minority groups around the opposition leader.
Achieving unity, however, is a feat within the Venezuelan opposition, the facts show it. The regime knows this and always aims to divide. Opposition parties accuse Guiadó officials such as Carlos Vecchio, interim ambassador in Washington, of having unilaterally resigned from his position and leaving the embassy empty; the same thing happens with the former ambassador to the OAS, Tarre.
Without a leader to convene, divided, as usual, the opposition begins May 2023 with the illusion of the primaries to name its candidate in 2024 and the possibility of returning to the table in Mexico with the regime.
Chavismo, meanwhile, is going through a moment of suffocation. The sanctions imposed by the United States hit its finances hard, in the midst of internal dissidents such as that of the Communist Party, which begin to show that the fissures within the regime are bigger than previously thought.