Just this past week, the National Election Council of Venezuela decreed it would suspend the opposition’s petition for a recall vote on President Nicolas Maduro, essentially meaning that Maduro will remain in power until 2018, when the next presidential election will be held. With his horrendous mishandling of the nation’s economic crisis, there might not be a Venezuela left come 2018.
The Venezuelan opposition is understandably angry at this outcome. The National Election Council is run mostly by the members of Maduro’s Socialist Party, which doesn’t make too much of a leap for the opposition’s conclusion that this was a politically-motivated decision on their part.
Also intriguing is the seeming simultaneous ruling by four Venezuelan regional courts that opposition petitions for the recall vote were signed with fraudulent signatures, making them void. In my own opinion, it’s not just a coincidence that all four courts agreed on this at the same time.
Where has this left Venezuela? With hundreds of injuries and arrests, as well as a dead police officer. The most serious of these casualties, however, is Venezuelan democracy. Maduro has proven he can not only manipulate the supposedly nonpartisan National Election Council, but even the nation’s judicial system in order to jealously guard his power. I’m concerned that even if this crisis doesn’t depose hum, neither will a potentially-rigged presidential election in 2018.
Tensions are flaring to new-found peaks, and the divisive rhetoric has only grown more extreme between the two opposing groups. The opposition closed down Caracas’s main highway a few days ago with protestors, and now plans to march on the Presidential Palace next week. That sort of move hasn’t been seen since the attempted 2002 coup against Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Now the ball seems in Maduro’s court. Will he ignore them when the protestors march on his own home? Or will he forcibly remove them from the premises? Either outcome foretells bad times for Venezuela.
Is the opposition actually attempting a coup? No, but the time for democratic negotiation has seemed to have come and gone, meaning the country is now treading into dangerous waters. Are we approaching the start of a Venezuelan civil war?
Hopefully not. But it seems that this move by Maduro has only inflamed political tensions, not defuse them. So, it wouldn’t be unexpected if we see more violence and more unrest in the future, especially if the economic crisis continues to worsen when Maduro does nothing to help it or the people of Venezuela.