HOW THE MAD, BAD MADURO REGIME CLINGS TO POWER / THE ECONOMIST

Venezuela’s election

How the mad, bad Maduro regime clings to power

Behind-the-scenes negotiations seek to ease him out of office

For a man who supposedly won an election, Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, looks worried. 

The gaudy tracksuit he sported during much of the campaign has been swapped for a solemn business suit. 

He seems irritable and exhausted in the repeated television rants in which he rails against “fascist” enemies. 

Days after a rigged election, it remains unclear whether he can remain in power.

Mr Maduro’s problem is that he has been busted. 

Everyone, from the army to his erstwhile left-wing Latin American allies, now knows just how unpopular he is. 

An overwhelming majority of Venezuelans voted against him on July 28th. 

Even though he barred the most popular opposition leader, María Corina Machado, from running, he still lost by a landslide. 

A little-known former diplomat, Edmundo González, stood in for Ms Machado. 

The two are working closely together.

Whether Mr Maduro concedes defeat depends on three interconnected factors. 

The first is domestic unrest. 

The second concerns attempts by Brazil, Colombia and Mexico to jointly mediate a solution between the opposition and the regime. 

(The Economist spoke to several diplomats with knowledge of the negotiations, who asked to remain anonymous.) 

The willingness of the regime to take part in talks hinges on a third factor: the loyalty of the armed forces.

Start with the demonstrators. 

The opposition has sought to prove that the election was stolen by collecting actas, the individual receipts that every voting machine prints out. 

Despite concerted efforts to stop them, volunteers smuggled actas out, in some cases by stuffing them into their underpants. 

All told, the opposition collected four-fifths of the print-outs and put them online. They show that Mr González received over 7m votes to Mr Maduro’s paltry 3m (see map).

When Mr Maduro was declared the winner by the electoral council, which he controls, protests erupted. 

At least 24 people were killed. Mr Maduro boasts that over 2,200 have been arrested. 

He says he cannot produce tally sheets because the electoral computer system was subjected to a “criminal cyber coup d’état” involving Elon Musk, the owner of X, formerly Twitter. 

The regime is betting that the protesters will not stand the repression for long.

So far, the opposition remains astonishingly brave. 

Under threat of arrest, Ms Machado has gone into hiding. 

Yet at a rally in the capital on August 3rd a figure cloaked in a white hood clambered up onto a truck, suddenly unveiling herself. 

“Venezuela will be free soon!” proclaimed Ms Machado to a crowd of tens of thousands. 

After the speech she melted into the traffic on the back of a motorbike.

Outside powers, meanwhile, are trying to maintain pressure. 

In the months leading up to the election the United States eased sanctions on Venezuela, in effect giving the vote its endorsement. 

Its overt role is now limited. 

It has recognised Mr González as the winner, though it has not gone as far as to acknowledge him as president-elect. 

It could fully reinstate sanctions again, but these have been ineffective in eliciting regime change in Venezuela.

An alternative source of pressure could come from the governments of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. 

The left-wing leaders of all three countries have had cosy ties with Mr Maduro. 

The hope is that this gives them more sway. 

They are pushing a two-pronged strategy: getting the regime to publish detailed voting results and setting up direct discussions between the opposition and Mr Maduro. 

The presidents of the three countries have called for “impartial verification” of the results, though what counts as impartial is unclear.

Their task is fiendishly difficult, not least because the strategy has holes and the trio is less united than it seems. 

For one thing, no deadline has been set for the regime to produce evidence on voting counts. 

Delay works in the regime’s favour as it waits for the opposition’s momentum to flag. 

In theory the next president will be inaugurated on January 10th.

There is also little progress on talks. “María Corina has told us clearly: ‘Why am I going to negotiate electoral results when the Venezuelan people have already decided?’” says a foreign official involved in the negotiations. 

The regime is also not keen. 

One idea is for Ms Machado to be excluded from discussions on the basis that Mr González is more palatable to the government. 

Yet that is “close to a last-ditch effort”, admits another observer.

Even if a meeting between the rival camps is arranged, the objectives remain unclear. 

One source claims that the United States has said that if Mr Maduro steps down “we will give him whatever he wants”, including a promise not to demand his extradition. 

Nonetheless, the source concedes, Mr Maduro is unlikely to resign unless he is pushed. 

Others suggest that the parties may have to try power-sharing for a while and then hold new elections. 

The opposition would rightly balk at this.

It is not even clear whether Brazil’s and Mexico’s leaders believe that Mr Maduro lost. 

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, known as Lula, has expressed confidence in the ability of Venezuela’s courts, which are stacked with regime cronies, to verify the results and described the election as “normal”. 

Mexico’s government seems even more reluctant to condemn the fraud. 

Fractures among outside powers contrast with Mr Maduro’s government, which is “very united at the moment”, according to the official in the talks.

The two countries’ indulgence of Mr Maduro may reflect domestic pressures. 

The Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil, part of Lula’s base, was quick to congratulate Mr Maduro and denounce the opposition as “fascist”. 

A wing of Morena, Mexico’s ruling party, wants to congratulate Mr Maduro, too. 

A former Mexican diplomat says that their country’s ambassador in Caracas is a Maduro sympathiser. 

He is “a very leftist activist”, they add.

Domestic pressures also weigh on Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro. 

Colombia already hosts 2.9m of the nearly 8m Venezuelan migrants who have fled tyranny and collapse; Mr Petro is negotiating peace with guerrilla groups that receive safe haven in Venezuela. 

If the regime hangs on, it could scupper talks and prompt more migration. 

Yet prolonged instability could do the same. 

One Colombian official says the government will not break diplomatic relations with its neighbour, even if Mr Maduro stays.

Amid all the manoeuvring, a crucial question is how the army’s calculations will change. 

So far, its leadership has fiercely defended Mr Maduro. 

On August 5th Mr González and Ms Machado published a letter asking the army rank and file to “stand by the people” and promised that an opposition government would offer “guarantees to those who complete their constitutional duties”. 

In response, Venezuela’s attorney-general opened a criminal investigation into both of them. 

Since the election the regime has promoted soldiers wounded in the protests and released a social-media campaign that depicts the Venezuelan National Guard under the slogan: “To doubt is treason.”

For now, army defections are unlikely. 

The two foreign powers that have most influence over Venezuela’s armed forces are Russia, which provides it with weapons, and Cuba, which helps run its intelligence. 

Both are staunch regime allies. The bloated military leadership profits from Mr Maduro’s crony capitalism. 

He has repeatedly warned the army that it has much to lose if it abandons him. 

Venezuela’s future turns on whether the soldiers believe him.