Have you ever wondered why the regime insists on holding elections after the population has completely lost credibility in voting? It seems to be a silly or stupid question, whichever way you want to look at it, but why insist on maintaining a semblance of democracy in a country that no longer believes that voting is of any use in today's Venezuela?
Let's see. According to the results of the CATI Verdad Venezuela Survey conducted by Meganalisis from May 12-16, 2025, 84.9% of Venezuelans will not go to vote next Sunday, May 25, and of this large percentage 83.9% indicate that “this election will not change anything” and 82.5% say that “voting is useless in Venezuela” (see in Spanish Encuestadora Meganalisis, Verdad Venezuela, May 12-16, 2025, in https://x.com/Meganalisis/status/1924528687258464580).
As we all expect, the regime will decide who will occupy the positions in the Governorships, Mayorships, Legislative Assemblies and National Assembly. How could a pack of wolves be kept calm, if they are not given at some point some piece of juicy meat so that they do not direct their appetite to the neck of the one who should feed them? Simple answer: by staging a recurring event that keeps them very busy and salivating for positions from which they could take advantage of in the public administration. That has been the inheritance received by the regime from the party system that ruled Venezuela until 1998.
But beyond that, those from the regime's pampered “opposition” -or collaborationist as some of us call it- are fighting over who could be the best option for the next presidential electoral contest, in case it were to take place. In other words, in spite of what might seem to be the stupidity of continuing to hold elections “that serve no purpose”, the regime finds these “electoral” events very useful, whether Venezuelans go to vote or not, which would be the least important thing for them.
The above points to the belief of a certain Venezuelan opposition -which must be studied in depth- of the need for the emergence of some “potable” opponent to the regime so that a transition may take place through elections. But beware! By the electoral way of the regime with its CNE. That is the reason for the presence of well-known opposition leaders of the near past, who are now repudiated by the majority of those who refuse to vote at present, among which Manuel Rosales and his generational successor Henrique Capriles stand out.
That is what actually sustains the future of those characters belonging to what is now called “the alacranato” of Venezuela. At some point, if the political opposition represented by María Corina Machado (MCM) keeps on “waiting for something to happen” or elaborating plans that do not materialize in substantive victories against the regime, beyond July 28, 2024, what will actually end up happening is that the regime will continue consolidating positions, unfortunately with the help of the geopolitical situation of the world in relation to our country. And the only thing they need for that is time. And we are giving it to them...
The recent U.S. decision to maintain Chevron's operations in Venezuela (see Miami Herald, May 21, 2025, U.S. secretly negotiating deal to let Venezuela sell more oil if it takes more deportees, in https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article306913806.html) through direct negotiations with the Maduro regime, are a clear indicator that it matters little whether the regime stays, or what happens to us in Venezuela, but the interests of the U.S. government and its companies will always prevail over that.
The above, despite having been denied late yesterday by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, what it reveals is that in the U.S., what the right hand does, the left hand does not know, and from experience we know that what will prevail will be the general interests of the U.S., regardless of what any official says (see in Spanish PanamPost, May 22, 2025, USA will cancel oil license in Venezuela that expires on May 27th, in https://panampost.com/jose-gregorio-martinez/2025/05/21/eeuu-si-cancelara-licencia-petrolera-en-venezuela-que-vence-el-27-de-mayo/)
And this is not an anti Yankee tantrum, but a clear proof of how badly the political opposition is misinterpreting this situation. The Americans realized too late that they could not leave Venezuela just like that, leaving the way clear for the Chinese. There are more than 100 years of oil operations in our country. Facilities, personnel, subcontractors, studies, experience, knowledge of the yard and its possibilities. And in the middle of it all, the regime is laughing its head off, watching how they fight over a country that they manage as they please, and that either of them could give them the resources they need for their permanence.
And going back to the electoral issue, meanwhile, that scorpion opposition is betting on the erosion of MCM's leadership, even if his followers do not go to the elections. They believe that sooner or later the regime will regain control over Venezuela's situation, especially its economic situation. And they certainly will if they have the money coming from the only thing we can sell well outside the country, oil, if they have Chevron and China's Concord Petroleum, and their financial avenues of payment, which bypass OFAC sanctions. That, in all languages, can be understood as the basic requirements for the political stability of a country.
This being so, from now on we will begin to see a fight to the death between these scorpions to decide who appears more internationally potable against Maduro to be considered as material for the peaceful transition of Venezuela, because the regime will never accept MCM nor the electoral results of July 28.
What is interesting in all this is that the theory of the potable candidate is not new. The succession of the dictator Francisco Franco in Spain was decided by himself, and went through the appointment of someone who swore to maintain the political structure that sustained the Franco regime, King Juan Carlos de Borbon. And he in turn placed in the leadership of the government someone he trusted the most, who ended up being Adolfo Suarez, after requesting the resignation of President Carlos Arias, appointed by Franco before his death (see in Spanish A King in whom very few believed, in https://www.elmundo.es/especiales/espana/el-rey/reinado.html). And of course, the King and Suarez led, fortunately, that transition, including the Constituent Assembly.
And we cannot fail to mention the Chilean dictatorship, which after losing the Constitutional plebiscite in 1988, submitted to a Constitutional mandate for elections in 1989, which it lost to the opposition, but retained the control of the military, with the dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte at its head. It is clear that things were not so easy. The military junta was dominated by a force that made the dictator Pinochet accept the result of the plebiscite, but perhaps on the condition that he would retain the force of arms, whatever the result of the 1989 presidential elections. It is the story that Pinochet and the Chilean army maintained a lot of political influence during the government of Patricio Aylwin, due to constitutional provisions that gave them important powers within the country. This could be considered as a transition managed according to the ruling regime's disposition (ver Revocation, Pinochet and Refoundation, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/revocation-pinochet-and-refoundation.html).
In both cases, the prevailing regime had a decisive influence on the political transition, since they themselves decided it that way. Will that happen in Venezuela using the unfortunate political material coming from a potable opposition? Perhaps it is too early to say, but if the national and international political situation remains as it is, it would not be strange to see a repetition of the case where a regime ends up managing its own transition with whomever it wants from a potable opposition.
I would be very sorry if this were the case because the political leadership of the opposition has not yet understood, by action or omission, the keys of the Constituent Moment we are living (see in Spanish Allan R. Brewer-Carías, Ruina de la Democracia, Elección Presidencial y Momento Constituyente 2024, in https://tinyurl.com/365h2jb8).
I believe that the only way to prevent the regime from deciding our future for us is for the incumbent political opposition to recognize that this alone corresponds to popular sovereignty, and to call for a popular initiative to decide over the regime when it still has the opportunity.
Caracas, May 22, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
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