A CIA success

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro during a press conference in Caracas (Venezuela). Prensa Miraflores / EFE / Prensa Miraflores

Maduro not only endures with the support of the Armed Forces and a sector of Chavismo;

The opposition also collaborates, and not a little, to keep him in power without the need for further repression;

it collaborates in two ways: with emigration and dollar remittances.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, some 5.5 million of the almost 29 million inhabitants of Venezuela have emigrated.

Most of them are opponents.

UNHCR does not say it, it says observation, knowledge of reality, common sense.

They are people who, in general, plague Maduro.

That means that, when it comes to voting, the opposition polls lose some five million votes in any election.

This is because, being recent emigration, many of these people are in an irregular situation in the host countries: they are not registered in any consulate nor do they have time to think about it, because their urgent and vital need is to get food and shelter. .

If, from an electoral registry of some 20 million people, you subtract five million from one of the warring parties, the result will be tilted on the side that maintains its core of voters, that is, on the side of Maduro.

More than 40% of Venezuelan families receive, in one way or another, remittances in dollars from a relative abroad.

The monthly average is around 45 dollars.

It is not much, but we must not forget that senders are in precarious situations.

The entire effort of the United States to make the hardships derived from its blockade rise up against the regime is undermined by the money that the anti-Chavistas themselves send to their relatives.

Thus, the population remains irritated, but its discomfort is tamed with dollars and does not reach a boil.

It is curious that Washington has not yet found a satisfactory formula to solve this paradox.

And that has been looking for more than 10 years.

There is a third help from the opposition, although there may be more: the massive flight of detractors abroad thinns the anti-government demonstrations and reduces their share of the street.

For this reason, for a couple of years, the demonstrations called by the opposition are numerically minuscule compared to those achieved against Chávez.

Conclusion: The United States has not managed to pulverize the undemocratic regime, but it has managed to snatch strength from the opposition in the streets and ballots at the polls.

And Maduro?

Calmer than ever: fleeing enemy, silver bridge.

The dollars that emigrants send to their families are a sedative that removes the possibility of a popular uprising driven by the accelerated deterioration of living conditions caused by Chavismo and the blockade.

A CIA hit.