Venezuela: the time of the brave people

The last week in Venezuela has been a true race against time for the opposition with new obstacles hour after hour. This turmoil has left a number of unwanted and unexpected candidacies. However, now that it has been confirmed that some of those candidates are convinced Democrats, it is crucial to focus on what is essential: mobilizing Venezuelans. The end or continuation of the dictatorship will ultimately depend on democratic mobilization and citizen commitment.

The refusal of the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE) to accept the registration of Corina Yoris as a candidate for the Democratic Unity Platform was such a brutal violation of the principles of democratic competition that governments usually benevolent to Nicolás Maduro, such as those of Colombia and Brazil did not hesitate to condemn it. It is logical that María Corina Machado, opposition candidate chosen by Venezuelans in October, has expressed disappointment and repudiation. It is equally logical that the last-minute registration of Manuel Rosales, opposition governor of the state of Zulia, has been seen as an act of gross opportunism by an opposition urged to keep alive the possibility of competing in the presidential elections of July 28 and defeating to the dictatorship. Meanwhile, the registration, also at the last minute, of the diplomat and academic Edmundo González Urrutia by the Democratic Unity Roundtable will give the opposition a small margin of maneuver if it manages to unblock Yoris' candidacy.

It is not, however, unreasonable to think that Rosales' “betrayal,” as Yoris and Machado described it, will become a fundamental milestone in the fight for peaceful change to which millions of Venezuelans continue to bet. As has been common in history, apparent betrayals have catalyzed the fight for freedom and democracy. The abrupt turn of Frederic De Klerk in South Africa and Mikhail Gorbachev in the USSR, considered by many to be traitors, helped to bring down Apartheid and the Berlin Wall and, with them, two of the most opprobrious and repressive systems of the 20th century.

It must be assumed that, in the four turbulent months left before the vote, the Maduro dictatorship will boycott every initiative of the opponents to divide them and make them fail. They will intimidate you, they will repress you, they will make you fight against each other, and if they fail to twist their arms by one of these brutal methods, they will tempt you with Faustian offers that “you cannot refuse.” Its objective is to remove the legitimate opposition from the electoral route, because each opposition move on the electoral board represents a growing threat to its power that must be averted. But this is not the time to break ties with the government or wear ourselves out in internal disputes. The main mission of the opposition leaders in Venezuela is to preserve and strengthen unity on the road to July 28.

Although she has been banned as a candidate, María Corina Machado, the greatest national leader at this time and who enjoys popular support of around 70%, must continue campaigning throughout the country calling for votes and expanding the opposition movement until heating up the muscle of citizen participation. The role of citizens should not be reduced to that of “spectators”, but rather should be elevated to that of protagonists. That is what the large participation in last October's primaries and recent surveys on voting intentions suggest.

Since “El Caracazo”, the social outbreak of 1989, Venezuelan history of the last 35 years has been turbulent and traumatic. But, despite the many eruptions of violence, the search for peaceful and democratic change has been the main constant. It is on that search that opposition leaders must pivot. And it is necessary to review Venezuelan history itself to remember that this is where the best possibility of removing Maduro and his circle from power lies.

1952, a year of brutal repression, is the example that best speaks to the current moment. The Government Board under the command of Marcos Pérez Jiménez sought to legitimize itself by calling a constituent assembly. From underground, Democratic Action, the most robust opposition party at that time, was doomed to conspire to overthrow the dictatorship and ordered its members to abstain from voting. Not participating in an electoral farce seemed the most logical thing to do in a scenario of repression and illegalization of the main parties.

Jorge Dáger, one of the main clandestine leaders of AD, wrote lucidly in

Witness of Exception

, his memoirs of those years: “And as for URD and Copei – the only parties allowed by the regime – their limitations made significant action almost impossible in the elections. Harassed by the police, forced to carry out their actions in closed spaces, placed at a gross disadvantage compared to the electoral organization of the Government, or unable to use the rigidly censored media, neither the Urredistas nor the Copeyanos could be taken as serious alternatives to power. […] Why, then, amuse the Party in electoral tasks that in the end could interfere with the substantive work?”

On November 30, surprisingly, Venezuelans came out en masse to vote for the URD. Given the defeat of the dictatorship at the polls, Pérez Jiménez had the results altered to present himself as the winner. However, the lack of flexibility on the part of the AD leaders prevented them from mobilizing their militants in defense of the opposition victory. As a consequence, Jóvito Villalba, a Uerredist leader, ended up being forcibly put on a plane to exile and democracy had to wait six more terrible years marked by prisons, torture and death.

The lesson for today's leaders is not only to humbly value the weight that errors of judgment have in history, but also to understand that the desire for change can be greater than the best of calculations, without forgetting that this desire requires a channel and a direction to become a reality. In other words, when citizens unite they become a collective force with inherent power. But it is a force that must be directed politically to achieve the desired change in an effective and constructive manner, preventing the masses from degenerating into a violent and destructive mob.

That is the challenge of the current opposition in Venezuela. And we must continue amassing that collective strength to overcome it. At the same time, the Democratic Unity Platform must coordinate pressure measures with the international community to prevent Maduro from closing the electoral path and offer the Chavista leadership a negotiated solution, even if there is no doubt of its responsibility in some of the worst crimes committed in the history of the country.

It is the time of the brave people. “The brave people that the yugó launched”, as the national anthem of Venezuela says. These are talismanic words that should resonate today in the ears of all Venezuelan democrats.

Boris Muñoz

is a Venezuelan chronicler and editor. He was founder and opinion director of The New York Times en Español. He tells about X: @borismunoz; Instagram and Thread: @borismunozO. 

Follow all the information from El PAÍS América on

Facebook

and

X

, or in our

weekly newsletter

.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I am already a subscriber

_