Venezuela, Maduro wins presidential election: possible scenarios

Venezuela’s Electoral Council declared on Monday that incumbent President Nicolás Maduro had won his third term in Sunday’s presidential election. According to government figures, Maduro would take 51.2% of the vote against 44.2% for his main rival, Edmundo González. Before and after the polls closed, the opposition, which in independent polls was given a lead of over 20 percentage points, had spoken of widespread electoral fraud. Maduro, who has ruled the country in an authoritarian manner since 2013, has exponentially increased the repression of dissent in recent years, arresting political opponents and protesters and repeatedly restricting press freedom. While his victory has thus been recognised by his historical regional allies – such as the presidents of Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Honduras – the transparency of the entire electoral process has been questioned in many Western countries. In particular, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, EU High Representative Josep Borrell, and Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani expressed doubts about the result and called for an independent verification of votes on electoral tabulations.

It is no coincidence that the United States has been watching this election round carefully – and with apprehension. These elections, in fact, were called last October following a long negotiation between the government and the opposition, with American input. Venezuela and the United States have not had diplomatic relations since 2019, but despite this, in the past few years Joe Biden’s US administration has worked hard to find an agreement that would stabilise the situation in the country. In October, the regime promised that it would then call new free elections and in return the US agreed to lift a large part of the sanctions, aimed at hitting the oil sector and other economic resources crucial to Maduro’s government, and to release part of Venezuela’s funds frozen abroad.

The effects on the US
As of today, therefore, the Venezuelan issue bursts into US politics in the throes of a lively election campaign, to say the least. The collective perception is that Maduro’s re-election and the resulting political instability in the country could exacerbate the refugee crisis in the final months before the November elections, potentially becoming a problem for the current Biden administration. All the more so since polls suggest that immigration and the border remain one of the main weaknesses of Vice-President and new Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, and the Republicans have made it clear that they intend to leverage these very issues.

So what are the possible future scenarios? Essentially three. The first sees the Venezuelan opposition determined not to give in to the ‘farce’ victory and to raise the level of confrontation in the country with widespread demonstrations and strikes, leveraging international pressure and the reinstatement of sanctions against Maduro. The second, on the other hand, depicts a painful acceptance of the opposition of the current situation, thus renouncing the frontal attack. In the third scenario, the country is destined to sink into a low-intensity war that would exacerbate the economic and political crisis already underway. The coming weeks will be crucial in this respect in determining Venezuela’s fate.