Maduro clings to power in Venezuela – can he last?

Nicolás Maduro’s regime “vowed to crush a burgeoning protest movement against election results that cement his grip on power”, amid growing evidence that he actually lost by a wide margin, say Kejal Vyas and Ryan Dubé in The Wall Street Journal. Official results have Maduro winning the election with 51% of the vote, but he has refused to release detailed data. The opposition claims that the regime has falsified the vote count and has provided evidence that they actually won by a landslide. There have been violent countrywide clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Maduro wins another election 

The claim that Maduro won the election “beggars belief” as he “is both unpopular and incompetent”, says The Economist. And little wonder. His predecessor, Hugo Chavez, had already impoverished a country that was once the richest in South America, but Maduro’s mismanagement over the last decade has prompted about a quarter of the population to emigrate. Despite Maduro’s regime banning one of the most appealing opposition leaders from running, Venezuelans “flocked to opposition rallies”. Maduro, meanwhile, had to rely on state workers being bussed in. Opinion polls gave a “huge lead” to the opposition. 

The failure of Maduro and the country’s electoral authority to provide any evidence for his win, while the opposition claims they have evidence that they won a landslide victory, has left the authoritarian leader “with nowhere to hide”, says Catherine Ellis in The Spectator. Even normally sympathetic allies, such as Brazil, are demanding proof. 

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But Maduro won’t fade away and he remains holed up in his presidential palace, “guarded by hundreds” of military personnel and police. Most shops and businesses are closed and “fears of what might happen next linger like dark clouds over the whole of the country”. There is talk of electricity cuts and food shortages.

Joe Biden’s bet fails to pay off

Even if Maduro manages to cling on to power, his supposed “election victory” will not solve his regime’s problems, says Michael Stott in the Financial Times. Muduro’s regime is shunned internationally, is under US, EU and UK sanctions and there are legal cases pending against him and his inner circle. The current crisis “presents the Biden administration with a dilemma”. Keen to “stem the flow” of Venezuelan refugees and “improve the supply of oil to global markets”, Washington had “bet heavily” on getting Maduro to hold a “competitive election in return for sanctions relief”. That bet now lies in “tatters”. 

It was “probably naive” to believe that “an entrenched dictatorship could be replaced at the ballot box”, says The Times. Still, the international community now faces a “quandary of how best to reimpose or stiffen sanctions while enabling the flow of humanitarian aid”. The regime’s “sanctions-busting support” from other authoritarian states, including Russia, Cuba and Iran, are helping to keep it afloat. And “China was among the first to congratulate Maduro on his supposed victory”.

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