The San Juan Daily Star
New York Times Editorials
Venezuelans Have No Choice But to Vote
By JAVIER CORRALES
I
n their efforts to escape authoritarianism, Venezue-
lans have run out of options. The opposition has tried
everything on the books to restore democracy. Nothing
has worked. The regime has become more authoritarian with
every passing day.
But on Sunday, Venezuelans will have another chance.
The government is allowing a presidential election to take
place. Some in the opposition are calling for abstention. This
is understandable but wasteful. By failing to vote, the oppo-
sition will waste the only chance in years to break this dicta-
torship.
The call for abstention is based on an accepted fact: The
election is a sham. Everyone knows this. The rules, if one
could even speak of rules in this kleptocracy, are indecently
stacked in favor of the incumbent, President Nicolás Madu-
ro.
Under normal circumstances, the dignified thing to do
on Sunday would be to stay home. But these are not normal
circumstances. Venezuelans do not really face a choice when
it comes to containing the regime, because choice assumes
that there are alternatives. There is nothing, at this point, that
can stop Mr. Maduro’s authoritarianism.
May 18-20, 2018
To understand Venezuela’s lack of choice, it helps to re-
view the factors that political scientists have examined as po-
tential causes of authoritarian breakdowns. They range from
least to most likely to succeed. In Venezuela, even the most
likely to succeed are improbable.
Let’s begin with economics. Many Venezuelans think
that the worsening economic crisis will bring the dictators-
hip down. But dictatorships seldom fall under economic pres-
sure. In fact, they tend to survive economic downturns and
use them as excuses to turn even more repressive. This is one
reason economic sanctions are usually ineffective in inducing
regime change. The Venezuelan regime has already survived
five years of economic contraction, under increasing external
sanctions.
Civil insurrections work better than economic pressure
in breaking dictatorships, but only if the state is unwilling to
repress them. Venezuela is not. The government since 2001
has repressed all major waves of protest, the last one in 2017
leaving a death toll above 150 and sending more than 5,000
Venezuelans to prison, where many were tortured.
Military coups are next on the list. They have a grea-
ter chance of ejecting autocrats than insurrections. But coups
against autocrats have become less frequent for a reason:
Governments today have better ways of detecting and thus
thwarting potential coups. And even when they do occur,
coups against autocrats for the most part do not deliver de-
mocracy. They replace autocracies with new autocracies.
So Venezuelans hoping that the economy, sanctions
against the government, protest or a military coup will resto-
re democracy might be hoping against hope.
The correct question to ask is not whether voting is ideal
— it certainly is not. We should be asking whether voting is
better than doing nothing.
To me, the answer is yes. By doing nothing, that is, abs-
taining, Venezuelans will essentially vote for Mr. Maduro, gi-
ving him an easy victory. He will emerge stronger within his
party, admired for delivering a win in the midst of economic
collapse. All this will serve as a green light for his designs to
Sovietize this crumbling petrostate.
Voting in rigged elections does raise important ques-
tions. Why vote if rules are unfavorable? This is a fair con-
cern. Of 11 possible pre-election irregularities, Venezuela has
already committed at least 10, including banning candidates
and parties, manipulating the electoral calendar to benefit the
ruling party, allowing electoral authorities to be partisan, fai-
ling to properly update and audit voting registries, making
welfare subsidies conditional on voting for the government
and threatening to check the identity of voters.
So why vote, then? The answer is in the polls. The go-
vernment is overwhelmingly unpopular, with Mr. Maduro’s
disapproval rate as high as 70 percent. If abstention rates stay
low within the opposition, it stands a chance.
And even if the opposition doesn’t win, it can still profit
from a large turnout. The more the opposition votes, the more
the regime will be forced to either cheat on Election Day or
acknowledge publicly its electoral weaknesses, both of which
17
A ballot box at a rehearsal for Sunday’s presiden-
tial election in Venezuela.
will weaken Mr. Maduro within his own movement.
Another concern: Why vote for an opposition candidate
whose democratic credentials are questionable? Of the three
candidates challenging the Venezuelan president, Henri Fal-
cón is leading. He is the one with the most name recognition,
but he is not exactly recognized as a proven democrat. Mr.
Falcón is a military official-turned-governor who left chavis-
mo less out of conviction for democracy than in protest for
not being given autonomy to rule as he wished. Mr. Falcón
thus seems more chavista-light than democratic-strong, more
insider than outsider.
But being an insider does not necessarily mean “con-
tinuism.” In the Spanish-speaking world at least, there are
plenty of examples of epochal turnarounds led by insiders-
turned-president.
For instance, in Spain in the late 1970s, Adolfo Suárez,
a former cabinet member during the Franco dictatorship, de-
livered Spain’s current democracy. In Paraguay in the early
1990s, Gen. Andrés Rodríguez, from the same party as a sit-
ting dictator, introduced democracy. In Mexico and Argen-
tina, Carlos Salinas and Carlos Menem, both members of
populist parties, got rid of populist economics. In Chile in
the 2000s, Michelle Bachelet, a former socialist, ran one of the
most successful market-economy responses to the 2008 global
crisis. In Colombia in the early 2010s, Juan Manuel Santos, a
former defense minister in a right-wing government, moved
the country to the left and made peace with guerrillas. And
just this year in Ecuador, Lenín Moreno, handpicked by an
autocrat as successor, has enacted a ban on re-election inten-
ded to prevent the autocrat’s return.
There is a reason insiders can become transformers.
Precisely because they are seen as friendly to power — so-
mewhat safer than hard-core dissidents — incumbents and
their supporters trust them a bit more, and may even make
deals with them. Insiders do enjoy more room for maneuve-
ring than pure dissidents. They can use that room to rise to
the top, which is what Mr. Falcón is trying.
Venezuelans should take advantage of this opening ra-
ther than deride it. The worst that can happen is that things
don’t change. But the best that can happen is that once again,
an insider will rise and become a transformer. By abstaining,
Venezuelans throw away this chance.
Many Venezuelans are tempted to abstain. I sympathi-
ze with them. Like them, I wish Venezuelans had a Nelson
Mandela, a Lech Walesa or a Vaclav Havel — leaders with
impeccable democratic credentials, distant from the regime,
competing in fair elections and delivering democracy, almost
overnight. But this clean exit is unavailable in Venezuela.