There are many reasons to guarantee the decision of María Corina Machado to boycott the regional and legislative elections of May 25 in Venezuela. Why? Many wonder. They will manipulate them, as they did on July 28. TRUE. People are fed up and have lost the hope that their vote will serve. True too. The regime disables the opposition, even denying the right to be a candidate, through an electoral judiciary at the service of the Government, which decides what parties and which candidates are enabled and those who do not. All of that is true and endorses a decision full of democratic logic.
They are powerful reasons that explain the low participation index that surveys give to these elections, around twenty percent of the electorate, which, where appropriate, would add a new sample of the absolute lack of democratic conditions in the Chavista regime.
But, political decisions are never unidirectional, they always have very powerful pros and cons and that is why it is necessary to adopt them after a deep and calm analysis of their consequences. It is necessary to calibrate that decision in the light of the historical experience in the long march of the opposition to Chavism and above all, taking into account the political consequences that derive from the electoral boycott for a long political period (2025-2031).
First, the non -electoral participation of the opposition, leaves the entire field open to the government and its party to keep all power. Little do they care about the lack of democratic legitimation in those elections. They are going to exercise it the same and without any clipper. On the other hand, international delegitimation does not worry. They have bordered it many times and have it on the regime’s very head, since the whole world (except a few and nothing recommended friends) already decided to reject the results of 28-J and do not formally recognize Maduro. Never, throughout the many years of Chavista, the international consensus on electoral fraud was so overwhelming and yet Maduro governs, almost a year later, without limitations.
The opposition has already practiced the strategy of the electoral boycott in 2005 and in 2018 and at all altered that boycott to the illegitimate exercise of power by Chavismo during those years. In fact, Gonzalez Urrutia’s historical triumph in 2024, was, in part, a consequence of a critical reading of the 2018 boycott and the illusion generated in the citizenship with an opportunity created by the firm decision of the opposition to participate, even if it was with a interposed candidate, to overcome the disqualification of Maria Corina Machado.
The question that arises then is this: would not have been better to participate and put the regime again in the need for another gross electoral manipulation maneuver so as not to lose regional governments and the National Assembly? Wouldn’t the international impact of a new “puchezo”, than that of the citizen boycott in these new elections more effective?
It also happens that both disqualification and the manipulation of the results, is, technically, much more difficult to carry out in the elections to governor and parliaments of each of the 24 states of the country and in the respective jurisdictions of the 285 deputies to the National Assembly. This operation of disqualification and falsification of results would be much more complex for the regime and offered very helpful flanks to undermine the power of its government. The precipitous call of the elections to the National Assembly is very suspicious for these purposes, together with the regional elections, which, perhaps, may have due to the use by the regime of the decision taken by the opposition of not participating in them.
Finally, if the boycott were total, that is, of all parties and of all opposition candidates, the internal and international political impact would be extraordinary, I admit it. But it is not so. Leaders of opposition to Chavismo will participate and therefore the political effect of the boycott is less, you want or do not want to recognize.
It is a pity that there has not been a consensual decision around this capital issue of the opposition strategy in Venezuela. Unfortunately, it is not the first time and on that way, I’m afraid it will not be the last.
