For ruling parties, a change in public policy usually makes sense if they are interested in maintaining their electoral competitiveness. The problem is that since the mid-2000s, Venezuela’s ruling party has stopped being interested in fair competition. The only thing that interests him is not to abandon power.
So instead of making corrections to his policies, Maduro has turned to unregulated gold mining (also at a dire cost to the environment and human security), the repression of citizen protests and electoral stunts, which leads us to the nationalization of opposition parties this summer.
Under the provisions of Venezuela’s constitution, Maduro must schedule legislative elections this year. The government knows that it cannot win, in that election competing freely, so it chose to change the electoral rules. He expanded the number of seats in the National Assembly from 167 to 277 to dilute the power of the powerful opposition parties. It has refused to appoint impartial electoral authorities and replaced the leadership of opposition parties with people willing to abide by its rules. Maduro pardoned more than 100 political prisoners, which is a hilarious concession, but he has kept the irregularities in place. These measures have consequences beyond creating more barriers for the opposition. In effect, they have divided the parties into two camps: one of them hopes to compete in the elections despite the inequalities and another plans to call for abstention.
The United States argues, with good reason, that the elections are rigged and appears to encourage the opposition to abstain from voting rather than create a united electoral front. The problem is that abstention is just what the government wants. Without meaning to, the United States may be helping the government weaken the opposition, which previously had great electoral power.
The United States has also played a role in the oil spill. While the spill occurred due to the decline of the industry, the fact that it is still going on does have some connection to the embargo. For now, Venezuela is prevented from using US refineries to process its oil and transform it into gasoline. This is one of the reasons the government has not shut down the damaged refinery: it is the only one in the country that produces gasoline. That is why the leak has continued and the oil now affects rivers and lakes.
It is easy to point to factors such as the limited vision of the opposition and the contradictory responses of the United States as responsible for Venezuela’s falling into incompetent and petty authoritarianism. Of course those factors are present, but they are not the main drivers. The underlying reason for Venezuela’s descent into authoritarianism is the same as that of the July oil spill. A petro-state that lost all interest in accountability.
The lesson is clear. Political responsibility, human rights and environmental sustainability constitute a fundamental triplet in modern times. If the first item is lost, the others disappear as well.
Javier Corrales (@jcorrales2011) is a writer and professor of Political Science at Amherst College. His most recent work is Fixing Democracy: Why Constitutional Change Often Fails to Enhance Democracy in Latin America.
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