On October 15, former Venezuelan presidential candidate Manuel Rosales returned home after six years’ exile in Peru and was promptly arrested at the airport. Mr Rosales had lost the 2006 presidential election to Hugo Chávez but then led the movement that successfully defeated the Venezuelan president’s referendum on constitutional changes in 2007. He thereby earned Mr Chávez’s wrath and was charged in 2008 with corruption while he was governor of the state of Zulia. He fled to Peru before his trial and was barred from holding public office until 2022 by a separate decision of Venezuela’s comptroller general.
Although Mr Rosales was Mr Chávez’s bête noire until his flight, he faded from view in exile. Now, his return is being linked with efforts to unite a fragmented opposition before legislative elections on December 6, even as Mr Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, struggles to impose himself on Venezuela’s myriad – according to some, self-inflicted – problems.
Venezuela is in recession and has the highest inflation rate in the world. The IMF projects a 2015 inflation rate of 159.1 percent; official figures put it at a still unsustainable 85 percent.
Confidence in Mr Maduro and the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), even among their working class base, is heading south. Recent polls indicate that the economic crisis is voters’ biggest concern and that support for the government is at an all-time low of 25 percent.
Undeterred, Mr Maduro announced, the day after Mr Rosales’ return, a 30 percent increase in the minimum wage from November 1, the fourth this year, in a clear attempt to rally support ahead of the parliamentary elections. With runaway inflation and the foreign currency black market determining the cost of scarce essentials, however, the real value of the minimum wage is estimated to be just US$20 a month and the increase is unlikely to make a difference to households. It therefore remains to be seen just how many votes Mr Maduro is able to buy.
In addition to the dire economic situation and increasing hardship, especially for the poor, violent crime is rampant, fuelling citizen insecurity. Unsurprisingly, popular discontent is being stoked by the opposition and has hardly been allayed by the distractions of Mr Maduro’s contrived border spats with Colombia and Guyana or, indeed, by political harassment and oppression.
In the latter respect, several opposition leaders have been detained in the past year and a half. Daniel Ceballos, the former mayor of the western city of San Cristóbal, was arrested in March 2014 and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment for failing to follow an order to stop anti-government street protests; he was released in August but remains under house arrest. Last month, the outspoken Leopoldo López was sentenced to 14 years in jail for allegedly inciting fatal violence during the 2014 protests when 43 people were killed. On Wednesday, former Caracas mayor Antonio Ledezma, arrested eight months ago, was to undergo a preliminary hearing to determine whether he would face prosecution for conspiracy against the government. The government, meanwhile, is deaf to international concerns regarding due process and the erosion of human rights, denying that there are any political prisoners in the country and claiming that they are just “imprisoned politicians”.
Ironically, Mr Rosales’ detention last week may help mobilise support for the opposition before the elections. Whether the chavistas lose control of the National Assembly for the first time since 1999 may, however, depend on the control the government exercises over the electoral machinery and, indeed, the level of intimidation of the populace. It is perhaps no surprise then that Venezuela has refused to accept an electoral observer mission by the Organization of American States (OAS), the hemispheric standard bearer for electoral observation, and has opted instead for a mission by the more compliant Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), to “accompany” the elections, whatever that means.
Most countries in UNASUR have been silent on the Venezuelan political crisis, the deterioration of the human rights situation there and Mr Maduro’s ill-conceived attempts to bully his neighbours. And many countries in the Caribbean seem all too happy to receive petro-dollar handouts in exchange for their complicity. Notwithstanding the old chestnut of non-intervention and the primacy of national self-interest in inter-state relations, none of this does them any credit.
The political and economic devastation being suffered in Venezuela is a national tragedy, which has the potential to destabilise the region. It is also one of the most serious challenges to democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean seen for some time. Perhaps the outcome of the December 6 elections will give an indication of what the future holds for Venezuela and the region.
