Caracas residents receive bags of food from the crisis aid program last April.Matias Delacroix / AP
A widespread indifference runs through the streets of Caracas before the beginning, this Friday, of a new opportunity for dialogue between Chavismo and the Venezuelan opposition. The meeting in Mexico between representatives of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition, led by Juan Guaidó, with the intermediation of the Government of Norway, generates many Venezuelans many doubts, although sometimes there is a faint halo of hope. 51% of the population welcomes this fourth attempt in six years to reach an agreement that allows the country to emerge from the terrible economic and social crisis that afflicts it, according to a Dataincorp survey.
Julio Pérez Alvarez, who works for a company that distributes drinking water in residential areas, believes that it is "viable for some things to happen, not everything, but some progress."
“I would like this to be fixed, to normalize, the conflict cannot be endured anymore.
Dialogue can make unity possible, that everyone's worth equally, for the good of the country ”, he adds.
The director of the Delphos demographic firm, Félix Seijas, assures that the majority of Venezuelans want “peaceful solutions, they do not want violence and they know the cost that this can have”, but maintains that, although the majority welcome the dialogue, “It is clear that the Maduro government is stronger and has an advantage.
This inequality of conditions is the basis for the pessimism of many people. "
In the street the voices also show division.
Secretary Gisela Corredor believes that "if the opposition gives in to its coup and siege agenda, and gets into the lane of the Constitution, agreements could be reached."
She assures that Maduro has always been open to dialogue as "he always affirms on television."
Jorge Caires, who runs a newspaper and sweets kiosk, is against him: “I don't have the slightest faith in dialogue.
My only hope is that Maduro will leave, and I have not lost it.
Negotiations with Maduro have proven to be useless, then he fails to comply with everything as he wants ”.
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The working sessions between the Government of Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition will begin this Friday and will have a new round of talks at the end of the month, in which they aspire to touch on the most delicate aspects.
The opposition delegation will be made up of the parties of the so-called G-4, which groups together the most important forces of the anti-Chavista dissidence and supports Juan Guaidó.
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“You have to tell people the truth: political change is not going to happen overnight. I agree with any process that means agreements for the benefit of Venezuelans, "opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski said at a press conference from Caracas on Wednesday. When describing the differences within the opposition as "normal", Capriles said that the citizen's decision to go to vote in the November regional elections must be taken "independently of the Mexican process." “This [dialogue] should not be a television show but something very serious. I think having serious and frank discussions without cameras can have better results, "he added.
But in the street some despise the attempt. “I think it is a waste of time to go to the dialogue. With these guys - the Chavistas - nothing ever happens, these people are capable of anything. Who prevents them? I don't see any options, ”says Antonio Ferreira, an employee of a grocery store in the east of the city.
The country seems immune to positive expectations, but the seriousness of the economic situation and the collapse of the population's quality of life in the seven years of Maduro's government have opened a space for moderate political sectors of Chavismo and the opposition have had informal exchanges of views, always discreet and low-key. "Making a qualitative interpretation of our research, I would say that what the population is proposing to the leadership is summarized in the phrase 'get in agreement.' Both Chavistas and opponents, ”says Félix Seijas.
The minority and moderate opposition parties, grouped around the renamed Alianza Democrática, whose best-known figure is Henry Falcón, were left out of the meeting in Mexico, and have issued a statement in which, although they welcome the initiative for dialogue, they regret not having been invited to participate and announce that they do not feel represented by "any of the factors present." This faction has especially regretted the absence of Spain at the beginning of the working sessions.
“Previous experiences have already shown that the Government uses it to take oxygen, to gain time, and then it does not comply with anything it agrees to.
On the other hand, I do not feel identified with the opposition that is sitting down to negotiate, ”says administrator Sarimar Jiménez.
While waiting to see what happens in Mexico this Friday, pessimism reigns.
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