Chavismo will celebrate a quarter of a century in power in Venezuela next year. And last month marked ten years since the death of Hugo Chávez and the arrival to the presidency of Nicolás Maduro, with whom authoritarianism and the persecution of the opposition accelerated. During this time, the recurring international attempts at negotiation between the government and anti-Chavismo have been unsuccessful and have ended up reinforcing Maduro. The experiment of the presidency in charge of Juan Guaidó ended in fiasco. Neither Norwegian mediation nor Trump's heavy hand achieved anything.
But now there is a new element that opens a path of hope for the seven million Venezuelans who have been forced to leave their country due to the economic and political situation. In fact, there are two novel factors: the main one is the coming to power of the left in neighboring Colombia, for the first time in history, with Gustavo Petro. The second is the war in Ukraine, which has led Washington to approach Maduro, interested in Venezuela's oil reserves.
Petro is determined to use his ex-guerrilla past to influence Maduro, whom he has met six times since he came to power. The Colombian president intends to extract from the Chavista leader a true commitment so that next year's elections are truly democratic. In exchange for? To lift or relax sanctions imposed by the US against the regime.
The US leader, Joe Biden, received Petro last week at the White House, who today will chair a summit of 20 countries – including Spain – in Bogotá to seek, first of all, for the government and the opposition to return to the interrupted table negotiating in Mexico. Biden's main adviser for Latin America, Juan González, and the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, will also attend.
In Washington, Petro spoke of a process on "two rails" to summarize his plan: "A Venezuelan electoral schedule with guarantees" in exchange for the "gradual and progressive deactivation of sanctions." Biden told him that he would be willing to relax the sanctions as long as Chavismo takes concrete steps towards democratization.
Something is moving, because Petro had dinner in Bogotá on Saturday with the delegates of the Unitary Platform, an organization that brings together the Venezuelan opposition, and on Sunday Biden thanked the Colombian for his mediation with this tweet: "Thank you, President Petro, for your commitment to promote democratic values in the Americas. When Colombia and the United States come together, there is nothing we cannot achieve."
In this context, Juan Guaidó yesterday reclaimed his lost leadership, announcing on Twitter that he had crossed the border between Venezuela and Colombia "on foot" to go to Bogotá and try to meet with the foreign delegations that will attend the summit, despite that is not part of the delegates of the Unitary Platform. The opposition leader was ambiguous and did not clarify whether he plans to return to Venezuela or go into exile, after the regime's repeated threats of arrest.
Some media pointed out yesterday that Guaidó's intention was to settle in the US, although that would make it difficult for him to participate in the opposition primaries on October 22 as leader of Voluntad Popular. A good part of the opposition leaders have ended up refugees in Madrid, Miami or Bogotá.
While trying to restore the dialogue, the Unitary Platform already called the primaries last year to choose a single candidate who can compete against Maduro, if there are finally guarantees for the elections. In addition to Guaidó, the main opposition leaders who never left Venezuela, such as Henrique Capriles, Manuel Rosales or María Corina Machado, are among the candidates for the primaries. However, the opposition continues to demonstrate the disunity that has characterized it during the 24 years of Chavismo.
There is no opposition leader who garners considerable support on his own, even if Maduro has a mere 22% approval rating. According to the reliable pollster Datanálisis, the only Venezuelan politician who would win an election today by an absolute majority is dead: Hugo Chávez still commands 56% sympathy.
In any case, for now, the protagonist is Petro.
