Muhalefet Lideri Figuera, Maduro Hükümetiyle Müzakere Masasına Oturdu

A post-Maduro Venezuela takes baby steps toward real elections

On June 18, Venezuela’s political transition took a surprising, if not entirely unexpected, turn. Dinorah Figuera — the president of the 2015 National Assembly, the last elected body in Venezuela that the U.S. actually recognizes — traveled to Caracas to meet with the president of the current National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez. The stated goal of the meeting was to open up negotiations regarding elections and democratic institutions. The visit was immediately recognized and applauded by the U.S. State Department, which said the agenda “includes key priorities such as rebuilding Venezuela’s democratic institutions, strengthening the [National Electoral Council], reestablishing durable guarantees for political participation, and securing essential civic freedoms for open political discourse.” Notably, this new development completely bypassed the opposition led by María Corina Machado and once again illustrates the Trump administration’s reluctance to work with her and her hardline coalition. The new Figuera-Rodríguez channel is the first meaningful institutional opening in months, but it will matter only if it converts a tutelary stabilization process into a sustainable democratic transition that gives Venezuelans back their sovereignty. Since January 3, when the U.S. military abducted President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, a number of significant changes have taken place, most of them in the economic sphere. The reform of the hydrocarbons law, which facilitates foreign investment in the petroleum sector, took effect that same month. It was followed by a new mining law that likewise increased the sector’s attractiveness for foreign investment. The most controversial element of these economic changes, however, is that oil revenues have fallen under U.S. control. While there has been approximately $8 billion in oil sales this year, only around $5.5 million has gone to Venezuela itself. The rest is in U.S.-controlled accounts that are administered in a process that is entirely opaque and ripe for abuse. Among average Venezuelans, expectations of change have been largely unfulfilled, leading to growing disillusionment. Acting President Delcy Rodriguez’s government made a strong start towards democratization with an Amnesty Law, announced in January and adopted in February, under which Venezuela freed several thousand people from prison or home arrest. However, that effort still left hundreds of political prisoners behind bars, and Venezuela’s broader repressive apparatus is still intact. While citizens and journalists feel a bit more freedom to express themselves, the laws and institutions restricting civil and political rights have not changed. While there have been some changes in military leadership, there have been no clear improvements favoring democracy and accountability. Gen. Vladimir Padrino was replaced as defense minister by former intelligence chief Gen. Gustavo González López, himself accused of human rights abuses. Security has emerged as a particularly worrisome area of collaboration between the Trump administration and Rodriguez government. On June 9, a joint Venezuela-U.S. operation bombed a rural house in Bolivar State, reportedly killing Humberto “El Niño” Guerrero, one of the founders of the Tren de Aragua. The justification for what was essentially an extrajudicial execution is that the Tren de Aragua is a “designated terrorist organization,” and this was “a joint U.S.-Venezuela operation against narco-terrorism.” Over the past 18 months, the Trump administration has provided varying justifications for portraying TDA as a terrorist group, the most substantive of which is that the organization was carrying out “irregular warfare” on behalf of the Venezuelan government under Maduro. There was never a factual basis for this claim, as U.S. intelligence repeatedly found; the TDA is a criminal gang, not a political insurgency. Yet now the Venezuelan government is fully collaborating in militarized attacks on this criminal group. This collaboration really should not be a surprise. Militarized police operations that summarily killed thousands in Venezuela from 2015 and after are a central element of the International Criminal Court case against Nicolas Maduro. It is now abundantly clear that the main motivation of joint military operations is to make Venezuela’s mineral-rich Orinoco belt safe for mining companies. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suggested that the U.S. could expand these attacks on “narco-terrorists” to other Latin American countries as part of what they are calling the “Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.” Meanwhile, just last month, María Corina Machado convened a meeting of opposition leaders in Panama to develop their strategy for pushing for democratic elections. In what was called the “Panama Manifesto,” they affirmed that they wanted to negotiate with the government with Machado as their leader. This proclamation was an effort to preempt the Trump administration from working with more moderate opposition actors like Figuera or Enrique Marquez, a former presidential candidate and political prisoner who was released after the U.S. military intervention. It was, of course, not successful, and Machado and her team were caught off guard by Figuera’s June 18 trip to meet with Joge Rodriquez. She and her team have still not made any public statements regarding the new negotiations channel, but insiders suggest they spoke with Figuera after her visit and were strongly critical of it. The Trump administration’s continuing preference seems to be for institutional stability and tutelary control rather than the risks presented by the hugely popular but uncompromising Machado. This builds upon its decision to work with Delcy Rodriguez after abducting Nicolás Maduro on January 3 as well as its invitation of Márquez to the State of the Union Address. Nevertheless, the State Department’s agenda for negotiations provides a good start in pushing for a democratic transition. In a collaborative report released by 21 Venezuela scholars last month, my colleagues and I recommended a broad set of reforms in democratic institutions, political parties, civil society and security. We also argue that a genuine and widely accepted transition will require some quick wins in terms of socioeconomic benefits for average Venezuelans, as well as improvements in state services and public utilities. In addition, there will need to be visible progress in terms of justice. This issue is often framed as kryptonite for democratic transitions based on the idea that those in power are more likely to resist giving it up if they face prosecution when they do. However, in actual transitions, justice is already on the minds and in the calculations of those involved — either as aspirations or fears — and addressing it can actually reduce fear and facilitate agreements. In this negotiation process, there is a clear danger that Figuera will be entirely dependent on a U.S. administration that continues to prioritize stability over democracy and has little regard for Venezuela’s sovereignty. She is not a charismatic leader and is not well known among Venezuelans. This will limit her ability to deviate from Washington’s demands. Moreover, she is vulnerable to the intrigue and sabotage of opposition leaders who feel they have been excluded from the process. The latter have shown themselves adept at using social media to stigmatize those who have different strategic visions. Machado and her team would do well to see this Figuera-led process as an opportunity. As my colleagues and I argue, negotiation processes inevitably require hard and unpopular concessions — “swallowing toads,” as the Spanish idiom goes. These can be difficult for leaders with further political aspirations. By supporting Figuera and her efforts to hammer out solid institutional and democratic guarantees, Machado could lay the groundwork for elections in which she could participate without the baggage of having negotiated what will undoubtedly be an imperfect set of compromises.