After years of suffering from economic ruin, food insecurity, and corrupt public institutions, Venezuelans wanted more than what Nichalas Maduro’s authoritarian regime could offer them.
A presidential campaign run by the democratic opposition presented a different vision. The campaign was fueled by promises of moving Venezuela from “division to unity, from abuse by a few to the rule of law for all, and from this undignified present to a dignified future for all.” Those promises—and the courage it gave Venezuelans to rush to the polls on July 28th—represented the single greatest challenge to Maduro’s reign in over a decade.
Dictators lie often, so it came as a surprise to few that, despite widespread evidence that he lost, Maduro declared himself the winner of Venezuela’s presidential election.
To help make sense of the situation, I sat down with the RDI-SNF Agora Dissident in Residence at Johns Hopkins University David Smolansky to discuss what happened during Venezuela’s election, the network of dictators helping to subvert it’s democracy, and what democracies are doing to respond.
The following conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.
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Mewada: Maduro is still in power, he’s declared his political opposition and its supporters as terrorists, and it appears that Christmas has literally come early for him, since he moved the start of the holiday to October. What happened during Venezuela’s presidential election and what has been happening during its aftermath?
Smolansky: July 28th was historic for Venezuelans. We had an election that was as untransparent as you can imagine. Almost five million people, including Venezuelans overseas, were banned from voting. We went to the election on July 28th because we were convinced that it would mobilize millions, and we did.
Edmundo González Urrutia is the president-elect of Venezuela. He won by a landslide, winning 70 percent of the votes to Maduro’s 30 percent. Urrutia won by a difference of four million votes, which is the largest ever in any election in the history of Venezuela, and that happened in conditions that were unfree and unfair. So, if we had free and fair elections, Urrutia wouldn’t have won 70 percent of the vote, he would probably have won 90 percent.
During the last five weeks, more than 2,000 people have been illegally detained. Almost 150 are teenagers, that includes 13-years-old boys. More than 200 women have also been illegally detained. A lot of them are suffering from sexual abuse and the physical and psychological torture that comes with that. The armed forces have launched a very psychopathic operation that they call “Knock Knock” operations, where they are marking houses of people with graffiti—people who, for example, work on the campaign with Machado and Urrutia.
Now, the atrocities have escalated to the point where the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have stated that what has happened in Venezuela since July 28th is a state of terrorism, which has not been declared since the Southern Cone dictatorships in our hemisphere.
Mewada: So even in conditions that were unfree and unfair, Venezuelans overwhelmingly supported the democratic opposition. Yet Maduro’s regime is still intact. What are the key institutions that Maduro has corrupted to help him stay in power?
Smolansky: One of the things that we need to understand about modern dictatorships is that they are not necessarily using weapons to conquer power. They are using the tools that democracy provides, and once power is conquered, they destroy democracy itself. Unfortunately, Venezuela is one of the main examples of this in the 21st century.
In 1998, Hugo Chávez was elected through free and fair elections. Political parties were not illegalized, there were no political prisoners, there was freedom of speech and press, and public institutions were intact. And like many democracies, Venezuela had problems during the 1990s. But still, it had one of the most prosperous economies and one of the most stable democracies in the world during the second half of the 20th century.
Now that we have the context of the past, we can better understand the present. Maduro corrupted the judiciary system in the first few years of his rule. That’s a common feature that you see in all authoritarian regimes across the world. When you have a judiciary system that is aligned with you, so many things that should be illegal become legal.
Second, Chávez politicized and completely expropriated the state oil company. Venezuela used to be one of the main producers of oil in the world and it has the largest oil reserves in the world, our state oil company used to be one of the most successful during the second half of the 20th century. So all the money that came because of oil, was used only for political matters.
Here is an example that few people know. When the budget during the first decade of the 2000s was presented in Congress—what we call the Venezuela National Assembly—it was calculated using the price per barrel of oil, which they presented as being $40 per barrel. And everyone thought, “What the hell? The price for a barrel of oil was $80 to $100, why are you saying it is half of that?” Well, the remaining part of the price that was not presented to the National Assembly was being stolen discreetly by Chávez. We still don’t know how many billions Chávez skimmed not only to consolidate his power, but to fund other movements across the world supporting his so-called revolution.
Finally, Maduro has co-opted the armed forces, more specifically high-ranked officials. Venezuela has 2,000 generals—that’s more than the entirety of NATO. The highest members of the Armed Forces are involved in drug trafficking, illegal mining, and the torture of political prisoners. It’s like dealing with a drug cartel rather than a classic dictatorship.
The regime has corrupted every security force and that’s how they have been able to keep in power. But the most important step that allows authoritarians to keep power, especially today, is to align the judiciary system with their ambitions. Venezuela is a very unfortunate example of how a prosperous nation can turn into one of the most brutal regimes in the world.
Mewada: Besides those who stand with Maduro in Venezuela, who are the key foreign players supporting the regime?
Smolansky: There are at least four very important foreign actors in Venezuela: Cuba, Russia, Iran, and China. In the case of Cuba, We have seen intelligence and reports from the Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations that detail Cubans participating and advising on tortures in Venezuela.
Then there is Russia, which has become the main partner of Venezuela, especially on the supply of military equipment. Chávez invested $12 billion buying Sukhois, which are soviet fighter planes, and Kalashnikov rifles, among other military equipment from Russia. And it is said that the Wagner Group is active in Venezuela, specifically with the mandate of protecting oil fields, oil refineries, and gas fields. Russia has not had such an important ally in this hemisphere since the days of the Cold War or more specifically since the day of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Collaboration with the Islamic Republic of Iran started in the first decade of the 2000s with the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Chávez. That relationship got more intense around 2019 or 2020, when Iran helped Venezuela avoid sanctions and Caracas started importing fuel from Tehran. It is very concerning that there are bilateral agreements on security and intelligence between Iran and Venezuela. I’ve also been told that a lot of Iranians are now living in Venezuela, especially the West Coast in Falcón State, where one of the main oil refineries is located. By doing this, Iran has shortened its distance from the US by orders of magnitude, which is significant.
Last but not least, there is China. Beijing loaned nearly $60 billion to Venezuela from 2005 until 2018. It was the largest loan that China gave during those 13 years to any country around the world. That money was given to build railways, modernize oil refineries, improve gas fields, and build up so many other projects. You don’t see any of that in Venezuela today. I’m not exaggerating when I say that everything was robbed. Now, Maduro has to pay that debt to China, which is estimated to be around $12-13 billion.
Mewada: It’s clear how Venezuela has benefitted from working with Cuba, Iran, Russia, and China, but what are these actors gaining from it?
Smolansky: Venezuela has oil, gas, and gold. It is the gateway to South America, it’s close to the Caribbean, it’s close to Central America, and it takes less than three hours by plane to travel to Miami—it’s like going from DC to Miami. It’s a very important spoiler in this hemisphere. Latin America has the biggest water reserve in the world. 70 to 80 percent of lithium reserves—which is the future of the energy transition—are in Latin America, more specifically in Bolivia, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. So having that spoiler in Venezuela, it’s a huge asset for autocrats.
Venezuela has also become a very important international player and ally to these regimes over the years. It supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and supported Putin when he invaded Georgia in 2008. Venezuela also recognizes territories disputed by autocrats, like South Ossetia. And when dictator Omar al-Bashir from Sudan was sentenced by the ICC, Venezuela was one of only four or five countries to support him. So, these guys go deep geopolitically and internationally.
Mewada: Given all that has happened in Venezuela over the recent weeks since the election, what are the possible scenarios for what happens next?
Smolansky: We will keep working with our allies in the international community and keep increasing collaboration with the countries and governments that are supporting us.
And of course, having the leadership of the former candidate Maria Corina Machado and president-elect Edmundo González Urrutia in Venezuela has been very powerful and unique. You’re having a duo on this, the candidate and the leader, and they have always got along well. And that’s important because sometimes the regime tries to fracture that type of alliance, but they’re more united than ever.
Hopefully the Armed Forces will also step up, we need them to. Not all soldiers are aligned with Maduro, afterall. Middle and low-ranking officials suffer the same problems as other Venezuelans living under the regime.
We have also seen governments with strong internal disagreements on domestic policy align on Venezuela, which has been powerful. In Latin America—President Boric in Chile who is on the Left and President Milei in Argentina who is a libertarian. In Europe—Prime Minister Meloni in Italy on the Right and President Macron in France who is a centrist.
And in the US, you have initiatives in the House from Senator Durbin, Senator Cardin, Senator Kaine who are Democrats and Republican Senators Rubio, Scott and Cassidy for a bill focusing on Venezuela called the Venezuela Advancing Liberty, Opportunity, and Rights (VALOR) Act. And now, Representatives Maria Salazar (R-FL-27) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-25) are coming together to put forward additional legislation.
Mewada: So even in societies that are seen as divided from the outside like the US—Venezuela has actually become a unifying point?
Smolansky: Absolutely. I think we need to understand that there are movements across the world that go beyond ideology, which is the case of Venezuela. They go beyond left or right. It is about democracy against authoritarianism. It is about the possibility of having a population live in freedom or oppression.
And once you are aligned on principles—human rights, civil rights, political freedom, independent institutions—then we can argue whether or not the state should get more involved in health or education, or if the state should invest more in security instead of infrastructure, or if the state should get involved in matters of bodily autonomy.
You can have those conversations within the framework of liberal democracy, and we can disagree or agree. But what you cannot agree with is having 2,000 people illegally detained, having people tortured, having women sexually abused, having teenagers in common jails with criminals. All of this is happening right now in Venezuela. You could be on Left or Right, but you cannot support that.
Sohan Mewada is an associate editor at the Renew Democracy Initiative.
David Smolansky is the 2024-2025 RDI Dissident in Residence at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
