Despite win, Venezuela’s opposition split over strategy

Regina Garcia Cano, Associated Press

Iglenda Monzón lost her restaurant to Venezuela’s protracted economic crisis. Her daughters then emigrated to Colombia to find work and left behind two children. She and the boys sometimes go hungry and often do not have running water, electricity or gas. Theirs is a common tale across the troubled South American country, and like millions of others desperate for a change, Monzón voted in the country’s recent regional elections.

Her ballot contributed to a deeply symbolic opposition win in the heartland of the ruling socialist party. But just by casting a ballot, she stepped into the most divisive issue for parties seeking a new government — whether or not to take part in elections most see as deeply unfair.

The gubernatorial victory in the northwest state of Barinas - where the late President Hugo Chávez was born and his family governed for more than two decades — has been celebrated by the opposition.

Voters like Monzón who contributed to that win see ballots as a tool for the change they crave.

“(Change) is by vote, it is the decision of the people.... Those are our weapons: the vote. They are the only weapons that we, the opposition, have,” Monzón, 46, said.

But the victory hasn’t convinced skeptics who doubt the value of participating in contests that most independent monitors still see as profoundly tilted in favor of President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Twice in less than two months, the opposition shocked the ruling socialist party by prevailing in Barinas. Sergio Garrido, a local leader unknown to most of the country, won a special election held on Jan. 9 after Venezuela’s highest court retroactively disqualified the opposition contender in November’s regular contest as he was leading in the vote count.

November’s state and local elections were the first in years in which most major opposition parties participated. The outcome underscored the opposition’s dilemma: The government finally accepted a loss in Barinas, but only after it had claimed victory in most other contests nationwide and only after it made things as hard as possible on its rivals.

Electoral authorities first let opposition candidate Freddy Superlano participate in Barinas, then the high court disqualified him just as it appeared he had won. His wife, who was chosen as his successor, was also ruled ineligible. So was her substitute. The previously obscure Garrido finally was allowed to stand. The main opposition coalition, the “Unitary Platform” led by Juan Guaidó, boycotted previous elections, including the reelection of Maduro as president in May 2018, arguing that Venezuela lacks the conditions for free and just voting.

Government loyalists dominate the electoral authority and courts, which have frequently barred or prosecuted leaders challenging Maduro. And after the government lost control of congress in 2015, officials moved to create a new super-legislature to overrule it. The opposition somewhat grudgingly agreed to take part in November after two opposition stalwarts were added to the five-member electoral authority. But Guaidó - the former congressional leader who is recognized by the US, Britain and other countries as Venezuela’s legitimate president — didn’t encourage people to vote in November. While his party ran candidates, he did not cast a ballot.

After the win in Barinas, he told reporters that that outcome was a great lesson in organisation and mobilisation — but said the opposition still needs to demand negotiations on fairer electoral conditions and an end to political conflict.

“This is something simple: that the political persecution be put to an end, that the political prisoners be freed, that we achieve a schedule for free and fair elections, that we achieve the economic reactivation of the country,” he said.