Maduro fights for Chávez legacy in Venezuela’s election

At home, the Missions covered approximately thirty areas, including education and subsidised markets.

Teodoro Petkoff, a former communist and one of Chávez's harshest critics, said that Chávez "brought the issue of poverty out of the dark and placed it in the spotlight," adding: "There is no way for anyone to ignore it from now on."

The results at this time were undeniable: within a decade, the percentage of people living below the poverty line declined from 43.9% to 28%, and those living below the extreme poverty line decreased from 17% to 8%. Illiteracy was eradicated.

Oil price collapse

The price of oil collapsed in 2008, but Chávez did not care. Nor did he address the emergence of what became known as a new corrupt "Bolivarian bourgeoisie."

Unsound deals proliferated, and while he did not initiate them, he did nothing to stop them. And so, the other side of the self-styled Bolivar of the twentieth century was on show: he was a dreamer, more skilled in rhetoric than in action, more adept at devising projects than at executing them.

His individualistic priorities made it difficult for him to work collaboratively and critically with others, leading him to lose many of his most loyal supporters throughout his political career.

Nonetheless in October 2012, Chávez had enough backing left to win another term, a fourth if his time under the old constitution is included.

Maduro anointed

But only a month later, he surprised the nation with a shock speech. "If I am no longer able to carry out my mission, Vice President Nicolas Maduro must take over, and you must make him president."

It violated the constitution, which stipulated that the Speaker of the National Assembly should take over during the transitional period.

On the day of his inauguration for the new term in January 2013, Chávez was too ill to appear. He transferred all his powers to Maduro, appointing him as Prime Minister, a position that did not exist constitutionally. Chávez died on 5 March, and it seems that he wanted to organise his succession to avoid internal conflict among his top aides.

This was the political legacy Maduro took into the presidential election held in April 2013, after Chávez's death.

The opposition candidate was Manuel Morales. It was only a narrow win for Maduro, a margin of a single percentage point. Chávez had beaten the same rival in the previous vote by 10 percentage points.

And in 2015, during the first elections to the  legislature of Maduro's term, the loyalist bloc lost its absolute majority for the first time since Chávez came to power, with the opposition nearly securing two-thirds of the seats.

It set up a series of diminishing returns for Maduro at successive elections, which came as the economy degraded.

Maduro was aware that he lacked the charisma of his mentor, who shone during elections and could drive high turnouts to keep power. He also had less of an international profile than his predecessor.

World stage

Chávez was no stranger to the international spotlight. He confronted US President George W Bush at the United Nations and insulted the Organisation of American States, while also forming provocative alliances, including with Iran when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was president.

Chávez also caught the attention of other world leaders by proving able to stay in power. After two consecutive general election wins, he ran up against term limits.

He held a referendum on amending the constitution to allow a third term. The proposal was initially defeated – his first and only loss at the national ballot box – but he resubmitted a year later and won.

It was a precedent that echoed around capital cities elsewhere in the world. In Moscow, term limits meant Vladimir Putin had stepped down as president to become prime minister.

On the eve of referendum, a British journalist asked Chávez, "Why don't you do like Putin?" Chávez responded with a broad laugh: "Should we stop Picasso from working while he has not yet finished Guernica?" Putin was to amend his country's constitution and return to the presidency.

Nicaraguan tactics

Without such a profile abroad,  Maduro adopted a strategy closer to the Nicaraguan model for the elections he fought at home: placing numerous obstacles in the electoral process to reduce participation. This approach involved preventing his opponents and competitors from running, arresting those who managed to proceed, and suppressing street protests.

His goal was to keep power by dissuading opposition voters from going to the polls. These tactics have worked so far, but Maduro's support has drained away and the current is now against him.

In 2013, when Maduro narrowly won the presidency, about 80% of voters participated. In 2018, when he renewed his term with 68% of the vote, only 40% of voters participated.

In 2015, when the opposition won two-thirds of the seats in the legislature, 75% of voters participated. By 2020, when the Chavista bloc won more than 90% of the seats, only 30% of voters participated.

Freefall and hyperinflaton

As the slide in oil prices persisted, Chavez and then Maduro's economic problems worsened dramatically. The opposition – emboldened by their victory in the legislature – adopted innovative tactics.

The student movement injected new momentum, and in 2014, the "La Salida" campaign sought a peaceful and constitutional transition to end Maduro's rule. In response, the regime intensified repression, suppressing protests, arresting opposition leaders and students, and, for the first time, using lethal force against citizens.

In 2019, encouraged by President Trump, the opposition refused to recognise Maduro's second term, proclaiming Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president. This sparked international divisions, with South American and European countries split on the issue.

For two years, Venezuela had two rival presidents, each dismissing the other as a usurper. Eventually, the opposition abandoned this strategy, deeming it ineffective.

In 2020, the US intensified pressure on the regime, accusing it of corruption, drug trafficking, and money laundering, offering a $15mn reward for information leading to the arrest of officials. This marked a new phase in the struggle for legitimacy, as the opposition sought to galvanise international support against Maduro's government.

The resource curse

The Maduro regime's decline in popularity came amid a severe economic crisis and recession, which shrunk the economy by 70% between 2014 and 2021.

Around 7m citizens – or a quarter of the population – have been displaced as the economic shockwaves have ripples through the country and the region over the past decade. It has been the largest displacement in South American history.

This crisis is a classic example of what economists call "Dutch disease", which can hit resource-rich nations, leaving them totally dependent on one sector – oil, for Venezuela – where the rapid expansion of the dominant sector comes in parallel with the decline in others, or at least their failure to grow.

Maduro bears some responsibility, but the crisis has deeper structural roots and was exacerbated by Chávez's policies, including unchecked spending, nationalisations, and price freezes. US sanctions also played a role.

It left Venezuela's economy heavily reliant on imports. Income from oil crashed in line with prices. Production slumped from 2.5mn barrels per day in 2013 to 700,000 in 2022. Imports became comparatively more expensive, stoking inflation and undermining the country's fundamental economic conditions.

Hyperinflation hit hard, reaching dizzying heights in 2018. Nominal values of the national currency, the bolivar, had to be reduced – with five zeros knocked off in 2018 and another six in 2021

Public services deteriorated. There was a six-day power outage in 2019. It became in the worst crisis in Venezuela's history, marked by hunger, rising crime, and a resurgence of poverty, erasing the gains of the Chávez era. It ended that 67% of the population were in poverty in 2022, up from 39% in 2014.

Only in 2022 – with the advent of informal dollarisation and a more pragmatic approach to the private sector – did the deterioration halt. There was a rebound last year, with economic growth of 5%.

Nonetheless, the economy remains far from its pre-crisis size, hindered by persistent structural problems: a bankrupt state, an unproductive and uncompetitive economy, and a lack of resilience.

Going to the polls

Last October, the government and the opposition met on the Caribbean island of Barbados and reached an agreement over holding the presidential elections, in the second half of this year.

Maduro agreed that opposition candidates would be allowed to participate, in return for US economic sanctions being lifted for six months.

The opposition then held primaries, in which Maria Corina Machado won with 90% of the vote. But the government quickly claimed that Machado could not run for office over a technicality on her paperwork. The US reimposed sanctions.

Instead of boycotting the elections, Machado instead backed Edmundo Gonzales, a 74-year-old university professor and former ambassador as the presidential candidate.

Even then, the government tried to prevent his registration, until the presidents of Brazil and Colombia intervened to extend the deadline.

Machado has toured the whole country alongside Gonzales during the election campaign. Her natural charisma and popular appeal led to her being described as an "heiress to Chávez". But while popular and inspiring, she is a committed capitalist, and so far from his ideology.

She has transferred her political capital to Gonzales, who seems shy as a politician and was little known before the campaign. Opinion polls show support for Gonzales above 50%.

Maduro has been able to improve his showing in opinion polls in an intense campaign to about a third of the electorate.

As voting has moved nearer, rhetoric has intensified. The political situation has become increasingly volatile. There have been accusations of assassination plots and Maduro has even appealed to the US for support, saying his own presidency is the only guarantee of peace, and warning of a potential bloodbath if the opposition wins.

Both Gonzalez and Machado have made clear their commitment a peaceful and orderly transfer of power.

Rising tensions

While tensions are set to rise into the vote, the result is expected to be safe from fraud, thanks to a secure electronic voting system. And historically,  Chavismo has accepted electoral defeats, but this time the stakes are higher as the president himself is at risk of losing power.

If the opposition wins, a complex negotiation process is expected to unfold, with the military likely playing a key role as the new president will not take office until next year.

After a long and tumultuous period of socialist rule – marked once by rising living standards and then by an unprecedented period of economic collapse and social crisis – there is more drama ahead in the country that gave South America Bolivar and his dream of regional unity.