On July 28, Venezuela will hold a presidential election amid suspicions of fraud among the opposition. The dictator, Nicolás Maduro, will face 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González. If the elections were fair, most studies point to a 20-25 percent advantage for González. Many believe that Maduro will steal the election or disqualify González at the last minute. So why do many in Venezuela still believe it’s worth putting up a fight?

　　How Did We Get Here?

　　González was not the opposition’s first choice. In fact, even for most acute observers of Venezuelan politics, he was completely unknown.

　　Initially, the Venezuelan opposition held a primary, which María Corina Machado won with over 90 percent of the vote. Machado is the leader of Vente Venezuela, the sole classical liberal party in Venezuela. For years, she has been considered the most radical member of the opposition against Maduro, even calling for a humanitarian intervention against the regime during the Trump administration. However, Machado was banned from running.

　　Machado had been previously a representative in the National Assembly but was removed from the Assembly by the Supreme Court during widespread protests in the country in 2014. A year later, she was banned from running for office for 12 months for (allegedly) failing to disclose gifts of food and vacation bonuses in her job in a patrimonial statement. When she ran for the opposition primary last year the disqualification had supposedly expired. However, José Brito—an opposition congressman turned into an ally of the government—said the Ombudsman Office had told him Machado was banned from running for 15 years, which was later confirmed by authorities.

　　Therefore, Machado faced a dilemma. The first option would be to protest the decision and not register any candidates in her name, which would divide the opposition. The second option would be to register someone, risking that this candidate faced the same fate as her and returning to step one. Machado opted for the second.

　　González was not her first choice. She initially picked Corina Yoris, a renowned philosopher and member of the Venezuelan Academy of Language. However, Yoris was also disallowed from running—this time without any explanation at all.

　　The March 26 deadline to register a candidate loomed ahead, and the opposition tried to register candidate after candidate to no avail.

　　Eventually, González’s name was allowed to be registered. Still, Machado and González both claimed that he was merely a placeholder while the opposition figured out what to do. In fact, González was a name not many Venezuelans knew. He had been an ambassador to Algeria and Argentina in the 1990s and during the first years of Chávez’s government. Then he dedicated his life to academia and coordinating international efforts of the opposition.

　　Eventually, the different factions of the opposition entered into a negotiation in which González was chosen as the sole opposition candidate.

　　Even after his relative obscurity and the oppositions maneuverings, many believed that González would be quickly disbarred from running. That he has so far remained in the race is shocking to all observers. However, the opposition has faced political persecution and many challenges on the way to the election.

　　The Persecution

　　Since Machado won the primary, the regime started persecuting members of her party, Vente Venezuela.

　　Dignora Hernández and Henry Alviarez, two of Machado’s closest collaborators were detained on March 20 and have been in jail since. Also, six members of Vente Venezuela asked for asylum in the Argentine embassy on March 25 after the Venezuelan Attorney General pressed charges against them for conspiracy. At least six other regional leaders of the party have been imprisoned during the campaign.

　　Likewise, Machado and González have faced immense pressure during the campaign and even an apparent attempt against their lives. Machado announced on July 18 that the car she and González were using for the campaign had been vandalized and that its brakes had been cut.

　　Even people providing services to the opposition campaign have faced government persecution. For example, the hotel where they stayed during their campaign trip to Maracaibo was forcibly shut down for one month. Dozens of small businesses where they have stopped to eat on the campaign trail have received visits from tax and administrative authorities and have been sanctioned. On July 11, a raid was executed in the house of 71-year-old businessman Ricardo Albacete because he had hosted Machado in his house in Táchira state two weeks before. Over 30 employees of his company were interrogated and Albacete has been under arrest since.

　　What Will Happen?

　　However, despite the persecution, the Maduro regime has not stopped González’s campaign, which has slightly increased the hope of Venezuelans. The main question remains, “Why?” Maduro is no stranger to choosing his opposition. In 2018 he banned all viable candidates from running, leaving only Henri Falcón, a former member of the government party, and Javier Bertucci, an Evangelical pastor, as opposition candidates. Why didn’t he do the same this time?

　　The most straightforward explanation seems to be that the government was waiting for the deadline to register substitute candidates before banning González from running. The date was July 18, ten days before the election. The deadline came and went, and González is still a candidate in good standing. This isn’t necessarily good news for the opposition. Maduro might be waiting for the election to be even nearer before announcing such a measure and leaving the opposition in disarray.

　　If the opposition cannot register a candidate, voters would have to pick between Maduro and a number of “controlled opposition” candidates that include a comedian, a perpetual candidate since the ’90s, an evangelical pastor, and a swath of candidates accused of corruption in government deals. The likeliest scenario is that most people would not bother to vote if this occurred.

　　Still, this hasn’t happened yet. Doing so would risk sparking widespread protests, even more international sanctions, and the condemnation of key international allies such as Brazil and Colombia. Condemnation from these countries could be a critical blow to Maduro’s plan to turn Venezuela into a tropical China—a stable dictatorship that can be a reliable trade partner with a mix of socialism and crony capitalism. He has eliminated price and exchange controls, reduced or eliminated tariffs, and many restrictions on imports. Inflation will likely be under 100 percent for the first time in 11 years and the GDP will grow for the second year in the last three, after a decade of contraction. Keeping positive ties with the countries that have not already isolated the regime, then, is critical.

　　The last time Maduro picked his own opposition candidate in a presidential election in 2018, it ended up with the National Assembly—then controlled by the opposition—appointing its president, Juan Guaidó, as interim president, and most Western countries recognizing Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela. Before the 2018 election, most sanctions imposed against the Maduro regime only affected individual government officials. After that, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan economy, especially against its oil and mining sectors. The country can ill-afford for another round of such harsh sanctions.

　　Maduro is a dictator but he rules within a coalition of power. Chavismo is not a unanimous block, but different factions with different priorities, such as different parts of the military, Marxist hardliners, businesspeople close to the government, and younger faces of the ruling party.

　　In recent days, allies of Maduro, such as Colombian president Gustavo Petro, Brazilian president Lula da Silva, and Argentinian former president Alberto Fernández, have said that if Maduro were to lose the election, he should allow a transition. Petro and Lula have pushed for a general amnesty for members of the government as a guarantee for a peaceful transition. This led the Venezuelan government to ban the electoral observation delegations that would go from Colombia and Brazil, and removed Fernández’s credential as an observer, as he had been invited a few months earlier by the electoral authority. This, of course, does not produce much trust in the outcome, but also means that some of Maduro’s most important international allies would not condone a fraud.

　　Another answer could be that Maduro thinks he can win and that pressure and repression can be enough to demobilize opposition voters. If necessary, he could always commit fraud to seal the results. Considering that most trustworthy polls point to a 20-25 percent difference for González in voting intention, it is unlikely that Maduro believes he can simply win. And the second brings the same consequences as barring González from running. However, if the international community has shown Maduro something, it is that they’re willing to forgive his authoritarian tactics as time goes by. Thus, it might be part of Maduro’s calculation to spend a couple of years under diplomatic and trade isolation until things slowly go back to normal.

　　Despite it all, there is a small chance for a peaceful transition in Venezuela. A year ago, no one believed it would be possible. But today, even risk advisor Barclays gives the transition a 15 percent chance of occurring.

　　Maduro is a dictator but he rules within a coalition of power. Chavismo is not a unanimous block, but different factions with different priorities, such as different parts of the military, Marxist hardliners, businesspeople close to the government, and younger faces of the ruling party. Therefore, if the difference between González and Maduro is so large as polls have indicated, a break between the power coalition might happen. In this scenario, the pressure over Maduro from within his coalition to concede might be enough for him to do so. In fact, this is exactly what happened in 2015, when the opposition won the National Assembly election by a landslide.

　　Of course, even in this case, González would face a gargantuan challenge. Venezuela is effectively a failed state today. The Venezuelan government has lost control of entire regions in the border areas, which have become a contest between guerrilla groups, paramilitary, and drug cartels. Gangs rove freely in most large cities of the country. Although inflation has greatly reduced and the economy is set to grow this year, 10 years of GDP contraction and inflation of over 100 percent (reaching 2 million percent in 2018) have left its mark on the economy. Eight million people, mostly young, have fled the country, leaving the job market in a dire situation. Ninety percent of the country lives in poverty, and about 50 percent in extreme poverty. Most public hospitals, schools, and universities are almost post-apocalyptic.

　　González would have to deal with a judiciary, National Assembly, and military in the hands of the current regime. He’d have to totally rebuild the country’s government institutions, which have made Venezuela the most corrupt country in the world. Transitions are never easy, but this one would be particularly daunting.

　　Venezuela has to choose between dictatorial mediocrity and opening a democratic pandora’s box. Most seem to have made their mind up for the latter, if their votes count for anything.