Venezuela falls deeper into dictatorship with Nicolás Maduro set to extend 12-year rule | Venezuela

Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism is poised to enter an even harsher new phase this week, with Nicolás Maduro set to extend his 12-year rule despite widespread suspicions that he stole last year’s presidential election.

The man widely believed to have won that vote – retired diplomat Edmundo González – fled abroad to escape a draconian post-election crackdown but has vowed to return home to challenge Maduro’s planned inauguration on Friday.

Maduro’s feared interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, warned the 75-year-old that he will be arrested if he tries. “Come! We’re waiting for you!” he bothered González on Monday.

Cabello insisted that the start of Maduro’s third six-year term would not be derailed, and they suspected suggestions that the military would switch sides – something the opposition is calling on it to do. “The barracks are calm,” claimed Cabello, who has ordered a major deployment of security forces to quell dissent.

Observers say Maduro’s expected inauguration – which the leaders of most democratic governments will boycott – represents a painful milestone in the slow collapse of one of South America’s largest democracies.

John Polga-Hecimovich – co-editor of a new book called authoritarian consolidation in times of crisis: Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro – believed that last year’s “obvious” election fraud revealed how the regime’s hardliners had defeated moderates who favored conceding González’s defeat.

“I don’t think there’s even a pretense now of negotiating or building consensus or reaching out to the opposition … It’s a total rejection of the opposition and a total rejection of democracy,” said Polga-Hecimovich, a US Naval political scientist Academy.

By stealing the 2024 election — which the opposition’s published vote tally suggests Maduro lost heavily — Maduro’s administration went from being an “elected authoritarianism” to being “a closed, hegemonic authoritarian regime,” the academic argued.

“It’s a form of dictatorship,” added Polga-Hecimovich, who believed the Venezuelan strongman had shown his true colors to the world with his election theft and post-election repression.

“He is a brutal dictator who imprisons people who think differently and who are against him. He is a dictator who oversaw the greatest economic collapse in modern Latin American history and is responsible for the largest exodus of migrants in the history of the hemisphere. And he is someone who has built a shameful legacy,” said Polga-Hecimovich.

On the eve of Friday’s ceremony in Caracas, activists accused Maduro’s agents of abducting more than a dozen people linked to the opposition, including González’s son-in-law, Rafael Tudares, human rights activist Carlos Correa, and a prominent opposition politician called Enrique Márquez. “A full scale witch hunt is underway” tweeted Ivan Briscoe, a Crisis Group Latin America expert.

Marcel Dirsus, the author of a recent book called How Tyrants Fall and How Nations Survive, said the story gave some hope to Venezuela’s long-suffering opposition, despite their repeated failures to oust Maduro.

“Often when change comes, it’s quick,” Dirsus said, highlighting the recent downfall of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, a Maduro ally.

“Maduro’s regime may look stable now, but there’s every chance it won’t be in power even next week, or next month, or maybe next year… Dictatorial stability is often a mirage… Maduro is mortal and in the end he will fall,” Dirsus predicted.

Dirsus said his research showed that 69% of personalist dictators were imprisoned, forced into exile or killed after leaving power: “So if history is any indication, Maduro’s chances of a quiet retirement are worse than a coin change.”

Recent history offers a more favorable prognosis for Hugo Chávez’s heir, a 62-year-old union leader turned foreign minister who was democratically elected after his mentor’s untimely death from cancer in 2013.

After leading the oil-rich nation into one of the worst peacetime economic meltdowns in modern history – a situation exacerbated by US sanctions – Maduro saw a US-backed campaign to oust him in 2019 by attempting to trigger a military uprising. He has also survived three major waves of street protests – in 2014, 2017 and 2019 – and an assassination attempt in 2018.

González’s main supporter, opposition leader María Corina Machado, called on Venezuelans to take to the streets on Thursday, the eve of Maduro’s planned inauguration, to demand his exit “with the energy of a swollen river”.

“This is a historic day … a day we will tell our grandchildren about and our grandchildren will tell their grandchildren about,” she told reporters from an undisclosed location somewhere in Venezuela on Tuesday.

Thousands followed the call in cities including Caracas, Maracaibo and Barquisimeto, despite the risk of arrest or a violent crackdown. At a march in the capital, a monk wearing a tunic carried a placard that read: “You don’t beg for freedom, you fight for it and you win it!”

By mid-afternoon, Machado had joined them and climbed onto a truck in the middle of the demo to address the crowd. “We are not afraid!” shouted the 57-year-old politician in what was her first public appearance since going into hiding to avoid arrest more than 130 days ago.

Machado, a charismatic conservative who campaigned for González after being barred from running for president, claimed Maduro’s regime was divided with soldiers and police officers debating “whether they want to be tyrants who oppress or heroes who defend their people”.

Panama’s former president, Mireya Moscoso, suggested the opposition’s hope was that Thursday’s demonstrations would spark an anti-Maduro military uprising that would allow González to fly into Venezuela from the Dominican Republic. “We are sure that (these protests) will revolutionize the country and that on Friday Edmundo will be able to take power,” Moscoso told reporters on Wednesday.

Polga-Hecimovich believed that Machado hoped Thursday’s rallies could “encourage a military uprising” against Maduro, but pointed out that no such mutiny had occurred in 2019 or after the 2024 elections.

It was the result of Maduro’s “quite brilliant” coup-proofing of his regime through a highly strategic mix of largesse, purges, promotions and loyalty to the defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, who has held the post for over a decade.

“I expect that many democratic states will throw their weight behind Edmundo González. They will criticize Maduro and isolate the regime. But it is nevertheless an uphill battle for the opposition to remove someone who has shown that his regime is so resilient to both internal and external pressures.”

David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University, predicted “a very underwhelming, sad inauguration” for Maduro, who has provided no evidence of his claim to have won a third term. The presidents of Brazil and Colombia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Gustavo Petro, are not expected to attend after refusing to recognize the result. Bolivia’s government has said its president, Luis Arce, is too busy to go.

“It’s going to be pretty pathetic,” Smilde said.

But at the end of the day, Maduro would likely remain in power. “I don’t want to be the voice of pessimism, but it’s hard not to think about it,” Polga-Hecimovich admitted.