President Nicolas Maduro's Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela intends to take over the last opposition stronghold, part of which is boycotting the legislative election scheduled for Sunday, December 6.

The opposition, embodied by Juan Guaido, self-proclaimed president of the country and recognized by some sixty countries, including the United States and France, prefers to bet on a parallel consultation to restore its legitimacy as the figurehead of it.

The unicameral parliament is the only counter-power to President Maduro controlled by the opposition since the last legislative elections of 2015 and which ended fifteen years of Chavist hegemony, named after the former president, Hugo Chavez (from 1999 to 2013).

The power of the Venezuelan National Assembly is however now only symbolic, because all its decisions are now annulled by the Supreme Court, acquired in Maduro.

It is the Constituent Assembly, set up in 2017 after another ballot contested and boycotted by the opposition, which effectively replaces the National Assembly.

However, this new entity is made up almost entirely of Chavist militants.

Juan Guaido denounces "a fraud"

"The opposition has never been less credible in the eyes of the Venezuelan population. Juan Guaido arrived by promising to expel Nicolas Maduro from the presidential palace of Miraflores and he was unable to do so," explains Aquiles Este, Venezuelan political scientist based in Miami, interviewed by France 24. "The very low participation expected for the ballot clearly demonstrates the lack of interest and credibility that this disunited and disjointed opposition retains. The Venezuelan population today has the priority of surviving."

Juan Guaido has a lot to lose in Sunday's poll.

Became President of the National Assembly in January 2019, he drew from this position the legitimacy to contest the re-election of Nicolas Maduro and proclaim himself interim president with the support of the Western chancelleries.

Juan Guaido considers this election organized by the power in place as "a fraud".

His ally Washington has described them in advance as "neither free nor fair".

The European Union has unsuccessfully called for their postponement and the Organization of American States sees nothing democratic in this election.

For Luis Vicente Leon, political analyst and director of the Datanalisis polling institute, "Maduro is not trying to get the United States or Europe to recognize [the legitimacy of parliament], he wants China" and other countries with which he has trade relations - Russia, India, Mexico or Turkey - "feel that institutions are functioning which will validate future trade agreements". 

Sure of its strength, the Venezuelan authorities even invited the United Nations and the EU in September to send observers.

Divided opposition on the way forward

While the main opposition parties called for a boycott, a small wing decided to participate in the poll.

The Spanish daily El Pais is interested in this opposition which is moving away from Juan Guaido, at the risk of legitimizing the victory of the Chavista party.

These parties, which come together in the "Mesa del dialogo nacional", come from the historic opposition to Chavismo, the "mesa de la Unidad democratica".

They advocate a dialogue with power and are nicknamed the "mesita" in Venezuela.

In recent months, they have obtained concessions from Nicolas Maduro, starting with two of the five seats in the National Electoral Council.

Not a majority, then, but a way of already indicating to Juan Guaido that he no longer has the monopoly of the opposition.

The latter had already had a first alert on his loss of influence in January 2020 when another opponent, Luis Parra, wanted to rob him of his post of President of the National Assembly.

The "mesita" also collaborated in the constitutional reform which introduced a proportional part in the legislative election and increased the number of deputies to 277, against 167 previously.

However, if this opposition is united around the idea of ​​presenting candidates to counter the authoritarian Chavismo of Nicolas Maduro, it is not unified.

Each presents its own candidates and the political orientations are very heterogeneous.

We find in a jumble: the Avanzada Progresista party of Henri Falcon, 2018 presidential candidate and fellow traveler of Hugo Chavez, the centrist Cambiemos party of Timoteo Zambrano or the Movimiento Esperanza por el Cambio of the evangelical pastor Javier Bertucci.

"These candidates will benefit from the votes of those who reject Maduro and those of Guaido's critics for his call for abstention," said Luis Vincente Leon, however.

Juan Guaido wants to re-legitimize himself

The opposition bloc led by Juan Guaido is losing momentum, its media attacks in early 2019 having resulted in nothing concrete against the Venezuelan power.

To regain a certain legitimacy, the opponent is betting on a popular consultation organized from December 5 to 12.

He wants to ratify an extension of the mandate of the current National Assembly and promote new sanctions against the Maduro government.

The vote, in the form of a referendum, must take place between December 5 and 12, without the support of the National Electoral Council, whose independence it challenges.

Venezuelans will be called upon to say whether they reject these legislative elections planned by the government and whether they support "all pressure mechanisms, inside and outside" Venezuela to organize "free presidential and legislative elections" .

"The coalition around Juan Guaido has launched this operation to give a little air to the latter's legitimacy as interim president," notes Aquiles Este.

"The question I ask myself as a Venezuelan citizen is how to continue to fight against the mafia currently in power? New solutions must be found, because after December 6, Juan Guaido will simply be out of power . We have to find another solution, perhaps with the future Biden administration. "

Juan Guaido is under pressure to achieve esteem success.

Donald Trump, who supported his adventure, and was one of the first to recognize it, is on the move.

And her relationship with him deteriorated.

"Relations between Juan Guaido have cooled since February 2019. The humanitarian concert was to be the prelude to the seizure of power by Juan Guaido, who promised to be supported by the population and the military. None of this happened product, "explained Jean-Jacques Kourliandsky in mid-October, in an interview with France 24." Donald Trump, faithful to his preference for strong men and 'winners', now sees Juan Guaido as a 'loser'.

Juan Guaido claims to have approached President Joe Biden through members of the United States Congress in order to maintain "bipartisan support" from Democrats and Republicans.

However, he has yet to speak directly to the elected president or his entourage.

Joe Biden's advisers, meanwhile, said they will explore direct contact with Nicolas Maduro.

Luis Vicente Leon notes that some European governments are also reluctant to give carte blanche "ad infinitum" to the interim president, because according to him "abstention leads absolutely nowhere [except] to preserving an interim government which is only symbolic"

And precisely, despite the government's attempts to mobilize a maximum of voters out of the 20 million called to the polls, abstention risks being the big winner of the ballot: according to pollsters, it should be around 70%.

For Félix Seijas, director of the Delphos polling institute interviewed by AFP, this election will be "a war of communication" where each camp will seek to deliver its message to the world: low participation for the opposition;

representative success for the Chavistas. "

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