Very brief comments on Venezuela

The election in Venezuela is always contentious. I've written quite a bit about it over the years (see everything here; on the previous presidential election see here). Some have decided already that is a fraud, and sustain that the previous ones were also, although that is far from clear, and most likely Maduro (let alone Chávez) did win all the previous elections. This time around things are less clear. First of all, the opposition seemed more unified, even with the disqualification of Maria Corina Machado, a mistake by Maduro, both from a general preoccupation with democracy, and also, because the actual opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, might have been more effective.

In my view, the only way to know what happened one would have to check the data, and that is still not possible. Both Lula and Petro have asked for a peaceful recount of the votes. It is the only way to find out what actually happened. Same calls have been issued by reasonable opposition people like Francisco Rodriguez.

There is a great distance from saying that there were problems with the election, to suggest that is what fraudulent, and that Maduro is a dictator. Obviously Venezuela is flawed democracy. But, in all fairness, the US is very flawed too. A lot of people are excluded, some for questionable reasons, like being jailed, which disproportionately affects blacks and Hispanics, and several can't vote on a Tuesday, with limited numbers of polling places and not enough voting machines in poor areas, leading to much longer waiting times for working class people. Disenfranchisement is common here, and has been historically speaking. These are just some examples. And it would be an understatement to say that Trump, and many others, have authoritarian tendencies.

That is NOT to say that everything is fine with Maduro and Venezuela. Certainly he has authoritarian tendencies, and even if he is proved to be the actual winner, there were too many problems with the elections. However, these are only exacerbated by the sanctions imposed by the US, and the anti-democratic tendencies of the opposition, always ready to promote a coup, with US support. Lifting the sanctions, and a more rational American policy towards Venezuela could be the actual path for more democratic outcomes there. Hope springs eternal.

PS (8/4/24): It has been now almost a week, and the government has not provided all the information necessary for the recount of the votes and it looks increasingly like they won't do it. I still think that best solution, rather than acknowledging the victory of the opposition candidate, a mistake the US committed before, would be to lift the sanctions and engage in diplomacy, as Lula has been trying to do, in order to get the government to provide full vote tallies. After all, the US has engaged in diplomacy with much worse international actors.

Mark Weisbrot on Venezuela’s Struggle - Widely Misrepresented, Remains a Classic Conflict Between Right and Left

By Mark Weisbrot

The current protests in Venezuela are reminiscent of another historical moment when street protests were used by right-wing politicians as a tactic to overthrow the elected government. It was December of 2002, and I was struck by the images on U.S. television of what was reported as a “general strike,” with shops closed and streets empty. So I went there to see for myself, and it was one of the most Orwellian experiences of my life. Only in the richer neighborhoods, in eastern Caracas, was there evidence of a strike, by business owners (not workers). In the western and poorer parts of the city, everything was normal and people were doing their Christmas shopping – images unseen in the U.S. media. I wrote an article about it for the Washington Post, and received hundreds of emails from right-wing Venezuelans horrified that the Post had printed a factual and analytical account that breathed air outside of their bubble. They didn’t have to worry about it happening again. The spread of cell-phone videos and social media in the past decade has made it more difficult to misrepresent things that can be easily captured on camera. But Venezuela is still grossly distorted in the major media. The New York Times had to run a correction last week for an article that began with a statement about “The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government …” As it turns out, all of the private TV stations “regularly broadcast voices critical of the government.” And private media has more than 90 percent of the TV-viewing audience in Venezuela. A study by the Carter Center of the presidential election campaign period last April showed a 57 to 34 percent advantage in TV coverage for President Maduro over challenger Henrique Capriles in the April election, but that advantage is greatly reduced or eliminated when audience shares are taken into account. Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere– it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected government – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence.

Read rest here.