Anything can happen in Venezuela’s presidential election

Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela is turning out to be much more significant than many of us anticipated a year ago.

Back then it was assumed that President Nicolás Maduro and his coalition — in full control of all branches of government, as well as the armed forces and oil industry, and with U.S. indictments and an open investigation by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court into alleged crimes against humanity hanging over them — would have little interest in risking defeat.

On the other side, long divided amongst themselves over whether to participate or abstain in unfair elections, and with a demoralized, exhausted population rejecting them in numbers almost as high as the Maduro government, the opposition coalition seemed poorly positioned to effectively participate in an election. What is more, the leading candidate at that point, María Corina Machado, was the political figure most associated with electoral boycotts.

Yet just a year later, Venezuela is headed to an election that, while a far cry from free and fair, looks competitive. Indeed, both sides are predicting that they can win on Sunday.

How did this happen?

The Maduro government is hungry for international recognition. Maduro and his officials feel like they successfully navigated the death of Hugo Chávez and what they see as an imperialist effort to push them out of power. Having survived these challenges, they now want to consolidate the economy by normalizing with the rest of the world and realize that doing so will require a semblance of a fair election. They have taken the risk hoping that, at a certain point, the opposition would step aside and abstain.

The Biden Administration is hungry to get the Venezuela problem behind it, given the country’s importance in geopolitics, energy security and immigration. It helped negotiate last year’s Barbados Accord by offering sanctions relief in exchange for an electoral framework that, while violated by the Maduro government in many ways since, has importantly contributed to the creation of this moment.

Through their own learning process, the opposition has resolutely embraced an electoral path despite those violations. At every turn, when the government used its control over institutions to complicate that electoral path — refusing to allow the electoral authority to organize the primaries, disqualifying Machado’s candidacy, refusing to allow the alternative candidate to enroll, arresting campaign workers and activists, and limiting international observation — the candidate and the opposition more broadly, have stepped around the barrier, accommodated to the new terrain, and pressed on.

With the substitute opposition candidate, Edmundo González, running ahead of Maduro by twenty to thirty points, according to most serious pollsters, the opposition is optimistic. Opposition rallies have generated massive turnouts across the country. But the government also projects confidence, asserting that its own polling and “big data” give it an 8-10 point lead. Neither is necessarily off base.

The pollsters showing a huge opposition advantage have significantly missed in their electoral predictions since 2017, in almost every case overestimating the opposition vote. Why? First, nearly eight million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2014, leaving a population whose characteristics nobody really understands since the last census dates to 2011. In fact, only the government has a really accurate picture of the population using the data it collects from its electronic “Fatherland Card,” which is required to obtain a range of government benefits.

Moreover, measuring the population’s preferences is not the same as predicting the vote; simply adjusting for “likely voters” is not enough. Of course, voter mobilization is an accepted part of electoral democracy, and the (ab)use of official resources for voter mobilization has always been part of the game in Venezuela. But under Chavismo, it has reached extraordinary heights, including not just the use of official vehicles and government institutions, but also the creation of “puntos rojos,” the checkpoints where people are supposed to register the fact that they voted.

In a context where most voters lack confidence in the secrecy of the vote this can mobilize and even swing votes to the government. In some cases, government employees have reportedly been obliged to send their supervisors pictures of the paper vote emitted from the machine. These and other manipulations can have a seriously distorting effect.

There are many other abuses. Changes in voting centers — oftentimes to places where opposition voters feel unsafe — can cause confusion, frustration and fear. Add to this the millions of Venezuelan voters abroad who have been disenfranchised by requirements that they have residency in their host countries and a valid Venezuelan passport — requirements that exist nowhere in Venezuelan law.

In addition, for the opposition, having an “outsider” candidate like Machado complicates mobilization of voters and poll witnesses, which depends on parties and leaders in the interior — many of whom she has spent years ridiculing as government collaborators. Now she and Gonzalez depend on their machinery. Despite evidence that the opposition made substantial progress in this regard, such coordination has yet to be tested and likely pales in comparison to the government’s well-oiled machine.

While both sides project confidence in the result, their actions belie their smiles. Journalists and influencers around the opposition campaign have worked to discredit and shut down any discussion of polling error or that the government could win at the voting booth. The campaign seems determined to infuse their followers with absolute confidence in victory that will generate maximum outrage if the result is adverse.

The Maduro government, for its part, has slowly sculpted a terrain in which these elections will have the least observation possible. In May, they withdrew their previous invitation to the European Union to observe the election. The EU observation effort would have been the most extensive professional outfit. The Carter Center will be there with a much smaller mission, and the UN will be sending only two or three experts.

The electoral council has accredited only one national observation organization with experience and only half the credentials they solicited. An unprecedented number of digital news sites within Venezuela have been blocked.

In any case, if there is fraud it should be obvious. The electronic machines have been audited by experts from both sides. This does not mean that fraud is impossible, only that it will be clearly detectable.

Election day irregularities at the voting centers will be documented by poll witnesses. One possible scenario would be long delays in announcing the results — something that with electronic machines should be available quickly. Extended delays will suggest that the government is losing and is figuring out what to do. The government may try to disqualify results from certain centers, candidates or parties to ensure Maduro comes out on top.

Or it could concede defeat. Despite all it has to lose, this scenario is not impossible. Even if it loses the presidency, Chavismo will still control the other branches of government, and there are five long months between the election and the investiture in January 2025, during which agreements could be forged.

International engagement has already had a decisive impact and will be central to any positive outcome. U.S. engagement of both the Maduro government and the opposition has helped keep them in the electoral game. But perhaps the timeliest inputs came from the region. In March, when alternate candidate Corina Yoris was not allowed to register as a candidate, President Lula da Silva of Brazil and Gustavo Petro of Colombia criticized the Maduro government. That surprising intervention likely led to the government allowing Gonzalez’s candidacy to proceed.

How should international stakeholders respond? If the opposition prevails, it should be encouraged to show moderation and inclusiveness since that is the only way a smooth transition could happen. If it loses, it should be encouraged to document real issues and not just stick with broad or vague claims of fraud. Whatever the opposition does, it should not be pressured to recognize the government’s victory in what has not been a free and fair election.

The opposition has so far followed leading research on authoritarian transitions that suggests it is better to participate in unfair elections than boycott them. In the best of circumstances, such participation can lead to a “stunning” outcome that ousts an authoritarian leader.

Even if not, participating in an election still exerts pressure on an authoritarian government, forcing it to play the political game with the risks it always entails. It also generates opposition mobilization and momentum. However, requiring those who participate in an unfair election to then recognize the result undermines this logic — a logic that could well continue to be important in the future.

If the vote goes against the government, there will be a huge role for diplomacy, making sure that Chavismo need not fear a witch hunt. There have been multiple proposals floated by a former Chavez minister, human rights groups, and the Colombian government. Some of these contain ideas that are mutually incompatible. But all of them understand the need for transition without retribution and can provide inputs for diplomats to forge an agreement with Venezuela’s political actors.