Autocratic regime Venezuelan leader seeks reelection on Sunday. Key for him — and the economy — is whether vote deemed fair

Andrew Rosati and Fabiola Zerpa, Bloomberg News

CARACAS
EnergiesNet.com 07 26 2024

For Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolas Maduro, hanging on to power might be the easy part.

If the election does go his way on July 28, as is widely expected, Maduro must still reckon with the economic devastation that’s beset the oil rich-nation during his 11-year rule. More than coming out on top, as the strongman has managed to do again and again, he must also convince the rest of the world that his victory was legitimate.

Maduro has long treated bagging yet another six-year term as a foregone conclusion as he sets out to revive the ailing $102-billion economy. He has rolled back subsidies, made overtures to investors and inked deals with oil majors. But none of that will matter unless world powers like the US, which only recently began to conditionally ease sweeping financial sanctions, perceive Sunday’s balloting as clean and fair.

Polls showing the opposition with a lead of 20 points or more just days before the vote are sure to cast doubt on any outcome favoring the incumbent.

“It’s very difficult to imagine at this point there’s gonna be a result that will satisfy Maduro’s need for international recognition,” said Phil Gunson, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Caracas.

Without that approval, Venezuela is likely to remain blocked from international financial markets. That means it will continue to struggle to restructure billions of dollars in defaulted debt and raise the capital needed to resurrect its derelict oil industry.

The sanctions, imposed by the Trump administration as part of a strategy to weaken and unseat Maduro, accelerated a years-long drop in the production of oil, the nation’s lifeblood. Output is currently around 900,000 barrels of crude a day, less than a third of the 3 million barrels it produced daily in 1998, the year Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, Hugo Chavez, was first elected. Living conditions have sank along with it.

But Maduro, 61, managed to gain a respite from the Biden administration, which took a new tack toward Venezuela following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

As part of a deal reached with Washington in 2023, the ruling socialists agreed to hold clean elections in exchange for the removal of some sanctions, including one banning the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, from selling crude to the US. Without access to what had been its top export market for nearly a century, Maduro resorted to selling it through back channels at steep discounts.

The deal eventually collapsed when the Venezuelan government kept Maria Corina Machado, the most popular opposition figure, disqualified from the race. The US then snapped back sector-wide sanctions in April, but maintained an operating license for Chevron, which is currently pumping around 200,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude a day. Other producers like Repsol and Maurel & Prom have also been granted licenses.

While additional permits may continue to trickle in, an unexpected groundswell for Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition candidate backed by Machado, will make a Maduro victory all the more difficult to be recognized by world powers.

“The problem for Maduro is that all things have gone in the wrong direction,” said Francisco Monaldi, director of the Latin American energy policy at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

Without new producers coming in and lacking cash of its own, Monaldi said Venezuela’s output may increase to only 1 million barrels of oil a day in 2025, before stagnating the following year.

But few expect Maduro to bow down. Diplomats who have dealt directly with his government say it’s keenly aware of the US’s desire to stabilize energy prices and avoid heightening an exodus that has already sent 7.7 million Venezuelans fleeing.

Maduro sees himself having “probably more leverage than ever,” said Thomas Shannon, former undersecretary of state for political affairs at the State Department. “The question is how the election takes place and what the aftermath is.” 

How Venezuelans will react to the results is far from certain, but more retribution from the US would likely cut short the country’s slow-moving recovery.

Broke and isolated, Maduro has managed to breath some life into the economy by adopting fiscal discipline and dismantling controls and subsidies that were part of Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian Revolution. He embraced private business by allowing dollars and imports to flow freely, and put an end to years of hyperinflation. 

Venezuela’s economy is currently less than half the size it was when Maduro first won the top the top job in 2013, but it has seen meager growth in recent years.

The opening has given fresh life to businesses like that of Jesus Linares, 49, who runs a bakery in the port city of La Guaira, located 30 kilometers (19 miles) outside the capital, Caracas. He says more money is flowing but sales remain low as most consumers are still struggling.

“People buy too little food, even bread,” Linares said.

Such penury is fueling Venezuelans’ desire for change. But with Maduro’s allies controlling the military, courts and Congress, any transition is likely to be slow, even if Gonzalez is named the winner.

Some Venezuela watchers believe Maduro is well aware of his own unpopularity and what his victory would mean to foreign powers, creditors and companies. They say he may ultimately try to share power, or to try bring some of his opponents into his coalition to keep business going on as usual. That could make the results more palatable. 

Others, like Francisco Rodriguez, an economist at the University of Denver, say Maduro may be prepared to simply muddle through. Iran, Rodriguez compared, was hit by US sanctions in 1979 and is still standing to this day. It never returned to output levels seen prior to the Islamic Revolution, but it has recovered much of its production.

“Ultimately, they adjust,” Rodriguez said. “They get new trading partners, they find different ways to do business.”

bloomberg.com 07 26 2024