Elections in Venezuela: "Many people are neither for the government nor for the opposition"

Audio 06:00

Preparation of a polling station equipped with voting machines for the regional and municipal elections on Sunday, November 21, 2021. November 19, 2021, in Caracas.

© REUTERS / Leonardo Fernandez Viloria

By: Gaëtan Plenet

4 min

Regional and municipal elections are being held this Sunday, November 21 in Venezuela, a country mired in a violent economic and social crisis.

To talk about the challenges of these elections, RFI interviewed Eduardo Rios, doctor in political science and specialist in Venezuela.  

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RFI

 :

Eduardo Rios:

First of all, we have to define what the opposition is.

The opposition is very divided, especially in certain states where the electoral union that it had succeeded in building before, within the Table of [democratic] unity, is now much less evident.

The opposition has chances, yes, in the big states in particular, in the states where there is the most population like those of Zulia, Miranda and Lara.

Now, will these elections be easy for the opposition?

No.

Is she going to win a lot of governors?

No.

Will the government do all it can to ensure that the opposition gets as few votes as possible?

Yes.

Suddenly, these are very complex elections for the opposition, but where the latter has a certain electoral chance.

That is the whole issue, and that has always been the issue of the elections in

.

You are saying that it is difficult to blindly trust the results of these elections.

Can we fear fraud?

Precisely, this is where the frauds are happening.

Fraud in Venezuela happens because the government has more money and the law on its side.

He bans candidates, makes laws against opposition and fills the ballot boxes, if there aren't too many observers on the scene.

The government does little cheating here and there which means that if the result is close, the election can tip over.

In places where the results are not close, opposition governors are likely to be elected.

This is the whole point of the situation: can the opposition mobilize enough to undermine this government strategy? 

You talk about observers.

For the first time, there will be European observers in this election.

It still seems that the ruling party has made some concessions, especially with the reform of the National Electoral Council.

Is it a big step too

Compared to zero, any change seems exponential.

You have to take things with a little measure.

But it is true that there have been changes.

There are two rectors now in the National Electoral Council and the European Union will observe [the conduct of the ballot].  

So certainly the United States said it was a fraudulent election and it did not accept it.

They are therefore not accepted by everyone.

But it is true that these are elections which, for the first time in a while, have a little air of normality.

End-of-campaign videos are like the end-of-campaign videos of our time.

So this may be a first step.

However, the ruling party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), is led by the polls.

And this despite obvious social anger.

How to understand that this party can still be acclaimed by Venezuelan voters

I think the situation is this: the Socialist United Party of Venezuela has 20-30% of the people who are firmly with it.

The opposition, by its inability to politically translate its victories on the international scene, is divided.

It thus has much less popular support than it had before.

Consequence: in Venezuela, there are many people who are neither for one nor the other, and the two tendencies are struggling to mobilize.

The

, but it is against the government, it does not benefit provided to the opposition.

This is how you have to see the situation.

The opposition has not yet succeeded, perhaps because it made certain errors of strategy, to unite behind it a significant part of the populations who suffer a lot, who are living a political, economic and social crisis without any measure in other Latin American countries.

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