United States Institute of Peace

For now, Maduro, who has been in office for more than a decade, is campaigning hard to win re-election, denouncing the opposition as “fascist” traitors and puppets of the United States. Nevertheless, the Venezuelan electorate is poised to vote overwhelmingly for Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, an unassuming retired career diplomat who has become the opposition’s “accidental candidate.” Gonzalez is running as a replacement for Maria Corina Machado, the opposition primary winner banned by the government from holding office; he has the backing of Machado as well as a broad coalition of political parties.

The regime could still find a way to disqualify Gonzalez, just as it did for Machado and her first choice as an alternate candidate. It could also try to avert scrutiny of the election by disinviting credible international observers, as it has already done with the European Union. But momentum is now building toward the election on July 28, with politicians crisscrossing the country, parties and civic groups organizing to monitor the vote and voters eager to cast a ballot in Venezuela’s first meaningful presidential election in 11 years. Seven million Venezuelans have migrated in the past few years to escape Maduro’s authoritarian rule and economic mismanagement, and most of those who remain are desperate to restore democracy and economic growth.

Many analysts expect Maduro will simply emulate Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, who with seeming ease banned and jailed every credible opposition candidate in that country’s 2021 presidential election and subsequently eliminated all vestiges of political opposition. But Venezuela has dynamics that Nicaragua, now considered a dictatorship, lacked: a popular national opposition leader in Machado, a candidate around whom voters are rallying in Gonzalez, a robust civil society, a mobilized electorate and an international community scrutinizing electoral developments.

Maduro could manage to secure a competitive outcome if election turnout is kept low or, as the opposition fears, the regime manipulates results in polling sites in isolated locations where the Gonzalez campaign might lack poll watchers. But if the government fails to dampen opposition participation and Maduro loses the election handily, the regime would be hard-pressed to simply disregard the people’s verdict by employing lawfare to disqualify the victorious opposition and deploying force against any subsequent protests to remain in power. In the event of a clear and overwhelming opposition victory ratified by election monitors, throngs of Venezuelans would be celebrating in the streets, and governments around the world would be congratulating Gonzalez and recognizing him as president-elect. Meanwhile, regional democratic leaders with ties to Maduro — like Presidents Gustavo Petro and Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva of Colombia and Brazil, respectively — would be discreetly prodding him to accept the outcome and initiate a transition.

Under those circumstances, it would be highly risky for Maduro to try to remain in power. Would the Venezuelan armed forces, albeit a politicized institution that sustains the regime, carry out orders to violently repress protesters from a president who has just been roundly rejected by the populace? Would Maduro’s party allies seeking to preserve a political future for themselves want to subject themselves to international sanction and the ire of the Venezuelan populace for the sake of a disavowed leader? Or, to the contrary, might the existing International Criminal Court investigation of crimes against humanity committed by the regime give pause to military commanders, rank-and-file personnel and political elites alike?

The truth is that no one knows. The allure of maintaining power, combined with animosity toward the political opposition and fear of retribution, might be so great that the government’s political and military apparatus would not hesitate to act to ensure the regime’s survival.

But that approach could backfire on Maduro and his allies. History is replete with examples of “people power” overcoming seemingly indomitable regimes.

A crackdown by the regime, therefore, could end up making it more likely, rather than less so, that Maduro faces what he fears most: prosecution within Venezuela, or else by either the U.S. Department of Justice or the International Criminal Court.

Maduro might not recognize it yet, but it would be in his interest — not to mention that of the millions of Venezuelans who want to avoid more bloodshed and repression — for him to accept the election outcome if he loses. Machado and Gonzalez have signaled publicly and privately that they are prepared to negotiate guarantees for the regime and ensure that the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela, PSUV, has a role in a democratic Venezuela. The opposition understands that, notwithstanding Maduro’s deep unpopularity, the movement begun by his deceased predecessor, former President Hugo Chavez, retains significant support and that governing effectively will require reconciliation between regime supporters and opponents. This could even be an opportunity for the PSUV to remake itself into a mainstream social democratic party along the lines of numerous leftist governments in the Americas and Europe.

This is not to say that negotiating a transition would be easy. On the contrary, as many other countries have found, balancing accountability and pragmatism can be painful. Human rights organizations will rightly insist there be no pardons for abuses committed by the regime, especially when it comes to crimes against humanity. Political negotiators will weigh the pursuit of justice against other imperatives, like control over government agencies and security forces.

The U.S. will have a role to play in advancing a democratic transition as well. To facilitate talks, Venezuelan opposition negotiators will likely request that the administration of President Joe Biden offer to lift the State Department bounty on Maduro and, more problematically, the Justice Department’s indictment of the Venezuelan leader and other senior officials for drug trafficking.

These would be hard calls for Biden to make, but they are dilemmas the administration would welcome. That an acceptable election in Venezuela is still even a plausible possibility is due in large part to the administration’s skillful leveraging of economic sanctions and other incentives, while synchronizing its diplomacy with key countries in the region. Helping Maduro understand that his interests can be consistent with those of his perceived enemies could make for a historic outcome in Venezuela this year.

This article was originally published by World Politics Review.