Poll after poll predicts a landslide defeat for Nicolas Maduro. But losing didn’t stop Maduro in 2015, and it may not now. Whilst it’s possible that the opposition may come to power in the coming months, it will be on the terms of the military, not the people’s.
Venezuela’s President has not tried to hide his plan to keep his job. In a rally this week, Nicolas Maduro told crowds: “I am the only candidate who has the support of the people’s power and the communities”.
However, as he continued, it became clear that it wasn’t ‘people’s power’ that he thought would keep him in office.
“I am the only candidate who has the support of the Venezuelan military of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces. I am their commander-in-chief, supported and loved.”
“And I have the support of Venezuela’s police family”
Whilst historically being described as a hybrid regime, an authoritarian government which worked within a semi-democratic system, following the replacement of President Hugo Chavez by the unpopular Maduro eleven years ago, the Government has resorted to increasingly anti-democratic actions to maintain power.
From banning opposition candidates, to sending firefighters who called the president a Donkey to jail for hate speech, the Chavez government no longer even maintains the pretence of democracy.
When the opposition won a majority in Venezuela’s parliament in 2015, Maduro simply created a new one and got his allies in the supreme court to declare Parliament illegitimate.
Despite millions of protestors taking to the street, with the military on his side, Maduro has held firm.
History shows that it will be the military, not Venezuelans, who will decide whether Maduro stays or goes.
The Military and Venezuela
Venezuela’s first democratically elected president came to power in 1947. To celebrate, the military overthrew him in a coup in 1948. In what was becoming a theme in Venezuelan politics, the new military government was itself overthrown in a coup in 1958.
Surprisingly, for a country where the military had historically played such an influential role, the new government rapidly transitioned to democracy. For the next forty years, Venezuela would be the richest, and most democratic country in Latin America.
However, by 1992, with the two-party system increasingly viewed as corrupt, charismatic military leader Hugo Chavez attempted to overthrow the government. Whilst some members of the military defected, most stayed loyal to the democratic government. However, in the end it didn’t matter.
Riding on a way of anti-establishment fervour against the increasing corruption of the Fourth Republic, Chavez was elected president in 1998. A coup attempt against his government in 2002, a decade after his own caused him to radicalise.
Under the guise of preventing a future military coup, a ‘civil-military alliance’ was announced, with generals appointed to lucrative political positions. Simultaneously, the government tried to improve the image of the military through their deployment in door-to-door welfare programmes.
This process rolled back the slow depoliticisation of the Venezuelan military that had occurred in the democratic period. Military figures were not only increasingly economically reliant on Chavez, but as a veteran himself, he was seen as one of their own.
Maduro’s Succession
Maduro was never supposed to be president. In the time leading up to 2012, it was assumed that Diosdado Cabello, a Chavez ally with close connections to the military would be Chavez’s successor. However, when Chavez announced former Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro as his successor shortly before his unexpected death in a cancer operation in Cuba, he was thrust into the presidency.
With no connection to the military, Maduro furnished his populist propaganda, emphasising his humble pre-political career as a bus driver. To prevent Cabello’s strong constitutional claim to be the legitimate successor, Maduro handed Cabello a range of important government positions.
Generally characterised as ‘the second most powerful man in Venezuela’, Cabello created a vast patronage network loyal to the president, in which army leaders were not only given government positions but given a free hand to use military resources to create private narcotic empires.
With America issuing arrest warrants, generals know that if they put the pro-American opposition in power, they will likely either be imprisoned by their own government or extradited to the United States.
A good example of this is the fact that the generals who supported a coup against the government, such as Alcalá Cordones and Cliver Alcalá quickly fled to the United States, where they were all convicted of drug trafficking.
The result of Maduro’s extensive patronage is a system in which the military are unwilling to overthrow the government, but in which few members of the military are loyal to the president personally.
However, Maduro has been taking steps to change that
Creating a Personality Cult
Since 2018, Maduro has tried numerous measures to build genuine support for his government. Central to this has been increased political propaganda and renewed funding for welfare, something that is particularly impactful in a country where real incomes have declined by 87% in the last decade.
Recently, the Venezuelan Government has threatened to invade Essequibo, a region which encompasses two third of Venezuela. The government used the alleged impending war to accuse opposition leaders of a “conspiracy to sabotage the Venezuelan people’s fight for Essequibo”.
Most farcically, state TV has began to broadcast the cartoon ‘Super Bigote’ (Super Mustache). In this superhero show aimed at kids, Nicolas Maduro, a humble Latin American President by day, transforms into his alter ego, Super Bigote, who goes around saving the country from opposition leaders depicted as monsters.
In episode twelve a group of Venezuelans protesting over shortages are revealed to be Alien shapeshifters by a crowd of patriotic Venezuelans, with Maduro quickly defeating them.
The Government has given out Super Bigote action figures of the President for free at Christmas since 2022 and Super Bigote themed memorabilia has become a core of government rallies.
Despite attempts such as these to build a personality cult among the nation’s youth, little can overcome the popularity gulf caused by rampant corruption, authoritarianism and economic catastrophe under Maduro’s administration.
Final Thought
It is too early to say what the results of the unfree and unfair ‘election’ will be. In the coming weeks Maduro may stand down from power. However, if that does happen it won’t be because of the election.
With his deep unpopularity, Maduro’s position is only retained with the support of the military. Perhaps like in 1958, the military will use the election as an excuse to dispose of an unpopular leader.
However, the Venezuelan military has developed great privileges over the last decades. It is by no means certain that the end of Maduro’s rule will mean the end of the military’s involvement in politics.
With even Venezuela’s historic ally of President Lula in Brazil seemingly abandoning Maduro, there are good reasons to think that the organs of state power may see the government as a liability. But with the opposition candidate’s role as the former ambassador to Venezuela, just as in Chile, the military will likely at least demand immunity for previous crimes, if not the continuation of current ones.
For more of Chamber UK’s Foreign Policy analysis please click here.
This article was written by Chamber’s features writer – Alex Connor.