On Sunday, voters in the South American country of Venezuela will take part in perhaps the most important elections in the country’s modern history.
After 11 years in power, President Nicolas Maduro is facing an uphill battle to win a third term against opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
Opinion polls show Maduro leading Gonzalez by nearly 40 points, and voters are exhausted by Venezuela’s economic crisis and political repression.
But critics question whether Maduro would accept defeat if he truly suffered a crushing defeat in the elections. The socialist leader has been accused of using his power to repress potential rivals, arresting some and barring others from taking office.
Who are the candidates, how has it played out so far, and under what circumstances will the vote take place? These and other questions are answered in this brief explanation.
When do the elections take place?
The election will be held on July 28, the birthday of Maduro’s mentor, the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
What do pre-election polls show?
Mr Maduro appears to be lagging behind his rival Mr Gonzalez by an insurmountable margin.
According to polling firm ORC Consultores, Maduro’s approval rating is 12.5%, while Gonzalez’s is a whopping 59.6%.
Another poll, conducted by data firm Delfos and the Andrés Bello Catholic University, found Mr Maduro’s approval rating to be slightly higher, at about 25%, but still well behind Mr Gonzalez, who garnered more than 59% support.
Why is Maduro so unpopular?
President Maduro has long struggled to regain the popularity of his predecessor, President Chavez.
Since the mid-2010s, the price of oil, Venezuela’s main export, has plummeted, putting the country’s economy in a difficult position.
The economic crisis has caused hyperinflation and severe economic strain, leading people to leave the country in search of opportunities elsewhere. Some critics have also accused Maduro and his allies of corruption and economic mismanagement.
Experts say U.S. sanctions over alleged human rights violations and democratic backsliding have exacerbated the economic crisis.
Laura Dib, Venezuela program director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a US-based research and advocacy group, told Al Jazeera that Venezuelans are desperate for an improvement in their dire economic situation.
“The minimum wage in Venezuela is about $130 a month, but a family needs about $500 to cover basic living expenses,” she said.
How many people left the country?
Perhaps the best indicator of how dire the economic situation has become is the number of people leaving the country.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 7.7 million people have left the country since 2014, making it one of the largest mass displacements in modern history. Around 2,000 people continue to leave the country every day.
Some experts fear that number could soar if Maduro wins a third consecutive election.
Who is running?
Maduro, 61, the successor to former President Chavez, is seeking a third six-year term as the candidate of the United Socialist Party.
He seeks to continue President Chavez’s tradition of providing social welfare programs to the poor and adopting an antagonistic stance toward the United States.
Facing President Maduro is an opposition group calling itself the Unity Platform Coalition.
The coalition brings together a range of political views, but its defining goal is the end of the Maduro regime and improved relations with the West. Unity Platform officials hope to improve the situation in Venezuela by achieving the lifting of sanctions and increasing investment, allowing people living abroad to return home.
The opposition is running as leader of the 74-year-old former diplomat Gonzalez.
Meanwhile, President Maduro has portrayed the opposition as pawns of foreign forces trying to privatize the social security system that many poor people rely on for economic support.
What happened the last time Maduro ran?
The opposition largely suppressed participation in the 2018 elections, protesting what it said was a biased electoral system, which Maduro ultimately won with more than 67% of the vote.
But groups such as the Organization of American States warned that the election did not meet standards for a “free, fair, transparent and democratic process”, and observers said turnout was the lowest on record.
Was this year’s election process fair?
In short: no.
Although the opposition has fielded Gonzalez as its top candidate, he was not the coalition’s first choice to take the reins.
In fact, he wasn’t even the second choice: Gonzalez was chosen after the government barred popular opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and her initial nominee to succeed her, Corina Lloris, from running in the elections.
Other opposition figures were detained ahead of the vote on what critics consider spurious charges.
In January, Venezuela’s Supreme Court upheld a 15-year ban on Machado from holding public office.
How will the government defend these actions?
The government has defended its decision, arguing that opposition leaders like Machado were involved in efforts to topple President Maduro and encouraged U.S. sanctions against Venezuela.
While Machado remains widely popular, the accusations are rooted in fears about the United States’ history of backing efforts to undermine the Caracas government and install a new administration more favorable to the United States.
Maduro and his allies have also accused Machado of corruption.
How “free” are Venezuela’s elections?
Machado’s removal from office drew widespread condemnation, especially after he won a landslide victory in the opposition primary elections last October.
Confidence in the legitimacy of elections has fallen sharply since Maduro came to power, with just 26% of voters saying they are confident the 2023 elections will be fair, down from 59% in 2012.
Will Freeman, a Latin America fellow at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations, said Venezuela could be categorised as a “competitive authoritarianism” and that elections were held under highly restricted conditions.
“This is not what we would consider a fair election at all, but it’s not Nicaragua either,” he said, referring to Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega government, which has led a harsh crackdown on opposition and dissidents.
“While it’s true that the winner of the primary, Maria Corina Machado, was arbitrarily barred from running and her party’s chosen replacement candidate was also barred from running, there are still other opposition candidates,” Freeman added. “So it’s partially free, but also quite unfair.”
Will Maduro resign if he loses?
While the opposition has reason to be optimistic about its chances of victory, there is deep uncertainty about what would happen if Maduro loses.
Many fear Maduro could declare victory or take more extreme measures to stay in power – Maduro himself said at a rally on July 17 that a failure to win could lead to a “civil war.”
“Whether there is a transition of power to Edmundo González Urrutia, some kind of repression within Maduro’s government, or Maduro blatantly violates the electoral process to stay in power, he will face challenges in any of these three scenarios,” said Dib, WOLA’s program director for Venezuela.
“Also, there is a six-month period between this election and whoever wins the election taking power, so that period will also be very delicate,” she added.
What are other countries saying about the election?
Western countries, especially the United States, have openly criticized the Venezuelan government’s repressive actions.
But there are signs that the United States, which has long professed a desire to change Venezuela’s socialist government, is softening its stance after decades of political and economic tensions.
Last October, the United States agreed to some easing of sanctions on the country’s embattled oil sector in exchange for progress towards free elections and expectations that it would increase crude production amid soaring global prices.
The United States also hopes that improving economic conditions will reduce the number of Venezuelans seeking refuge inside the country.
“The risk of more people fleeing is also a major concern for other countries in the region, particularly Colombia, which hosts around 35 percent of the refugees. [migrating] “Not just for the population, but certainly for the United States,” Dibs said.
But following the suspension of Machado’s presidential campaign and the arrests of several opposition politicians, the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden reimposed some, but not all, of the relaxed sanctions.
Other governments in the region, including those critical of U.S. sanctions, have also called on Maduro to respect the will of the voters.
“I have told President Maduro that Venezuela’s only chance of returning to normalcy is to hold an electoral process that is widely respected,” Brazil’s leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a statement this month.
“He must respect the democratic process.”
