Fears high Maduro to steal Venezuelan election
CARACAS—Uncertainty is hanging over Venezuela as it prepares for presidential elections next Sunday that many fear incumbent Nicolas Maduro will attempt to steal from the opposition candidate outshining him in polls.
Maduro, seeking a third six-year term at the helm of the economically devastated country, lags far behind challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia in stated voter intentions, but is counting on a loyal electoral machinery.
With just over a week to go, Maduro warned on Saturday that the vote outcome would decide the country’s future: “whether it becomes a peaceful Venezuela or a convulsed, violent and conflict-ridden Venezuela. Peace or war.”
With the opposition declaring itself certain of victory, analysts and observers say the regime has already skewed the playing field and will meddle to the end, setting the stage for a contested result and possible post-election violence.
“I think no one is under the illusion that these elections will be free or fair,” said Laura Dib, Venezuela program director of the Washington Office on Latin America (Wola), an NGO promoting human rights.
“We’re holding elections in an authoritarian government.”
Institutions loyal to 61-year-old Maduro—who has held office since taking over from Hugo Chavez in 2013—have barred wildly popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado from the race on what she says are trumped-up corruption charges.
Others, too, were disqualified or pulled out, and the opposition Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) picked the 74-year-old Gonzalez Urrutia, a little-known former diplomat, as a last-minute figurehead.
Banned from flying
Eight other candidates all have insignificant polling numbers. Machado, who overwhelmingly won an opposition primary last year, has campaigned for Gonzalez Urrutia countrywide—traveling by road, as she is banned from flying, denouncing what she says is unrelenting official harassment of her entourage and supporters.
Last week, Venezuelan rights group Foro Penal reported 102 arrests this year of people linked to the opposition campaign.
It says there are more than 270 “political prisoners” in Venezuela.
The government in Caracas accuses the opposition of conspiring against Maduro, whose 2018 reelection was rejected as illegitimate by most Western and Latin American countries.
Years of sanctions and other pressure have failed to dislodge the president, who enjoys support from a political patronage system and the nation’s military leaders, as well as from Cuba, Russia and China.
Maduro has repeatedly vowed that he won’t cede power now even as Venezuelans clamor for change. The formerly rich petrostate has seen GDP fall by 80 percent in less than a decade, driving some seven million of its citizens to flee.
