¿Qué va a pasar en Venezuela después de las elecciones presidenciales?

0:06 I' m Roberto Pombo. Welcome to my questions. An average rush program sponsored by KFAM, family compensation box. Today the presidential elections are held in Venezuela, the current president and candidate Nicolás Maduro against the former diplomat Edmundo González. A democratic transition is possible. Faced with an eventual victory of the opposition, Maduro would admit a defeat. For this chapter we spoke with former Chancellor MariaÁngel Holguín, with the deputy to the Assembly to Julio Borges, with the President of PDB Sadoc, Horacio Medina, and with the journalist Roberto Dennis I am Roberto Pombo. This is chapter ninety- eight of my questions.

0:53 Making this chapter isn' t easy, because there' s a lot to tell in a very short time. It is like trying to describe the garden of delights the painting of the Mosco in just twenty- nine minutes. There are complexities, there are thousands of facts and a long history that, as ours spans decades as I write this program, there is still no certainty that the presidential elections in Venezuela, which are supposed to be or are going to be today, will be held, even though this date was set more than four months ago, which in any country seems an obvious or something simple. In Venezuela, it is an exception that it is clear when and how the election day will be to define the President. Reaching this simple achievement required several governments, such as the United States, France and Colombia, to intervene to propose a dialogue between the regime of Nicolás Maduro and the opposition leaders, as if it were peace dialogues between two rival sides in a war. But the most significant milestone for the date of these elections was the signing of what is known as the Barbados Agreement, although it seems like a document signed in the 19th century between Simón Bolívar and the Spanish Army, is a document that collected commitments derived from the negotiation between the Venezuelan political opposition, meeting in the Democratic Unity Bureau and the regime of Nicolás Maduro in October of two thousand and twenty - three. But these negotiations are not new. They started at two thousand nineteen, they' ve already been intermittent. It all started, like many

2:25 dialogues with a dissolution. You remember the famous diplomatic siege of a successful diplomatic siege. The diplomatic siege continues with the diplomatic siege. We have the largest diplomatic siege ever seen in this hemisphere. But we must go even further back in time to the parliamentary elections, which would become our Congress in Colombia. In two thousand and fifteen, in Venezuela, a new Parliament was chosen in which, after sixteen years of an official majority, that is, of parliamentarians who supported the Government, the National Unity Bureau obtained one hundred and seven seats, while the officialism only fifty- five, managed to make a qualified majority, with three fifths of the National Assembly. This majority gave the Assembly powers to season enabling laws, to remove members of the National Electoral Council, to test censorship emotions for ministers and the Vice President, undoubtedly powers that level the balance a little with the total power that Chavismo had acquired until then. It was in this context that the figure of Juan Guaidó became relevant. However, the obstacle race so far began only a few months later. In January of two thousand sixteen, the Supreme Court of Venezuela, also in the hands of the Government, declared in contempt of the National Assembly, only energy and opposition majority because it disobeyed the contestation of the elections throughout the State of Amazonas.

4:00 We have to give a small but not a minor piece of information. In the previous nine years, the Venezuelan Court of Justice did not once rule against the government or its political party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela PSV. What came next was chaos. The dispute between the legislative branch against the executive and the judicial branch was fierce. In October, the Assembly proposed a political trial of Nicolás Maduro for Aburocomillas, the existence of a coup d'état committed by the regime of Nicolás Maduro Cierro Comillas. But that, from the beginning, meant more of a symbolic act than a real trial that compromised the power of the President, because, as he explained to the BBC, the professor of law and constitutionalist expert José Ignacio Hernández Auro, quotes. The Constitution of Venezuela does not regulate, as in Brazil, a political trial leading to dismissal. It has no legal consequences and bellanas close quotes. That symbolism of the attempt to make a political trial of the President was reflected in the first year of the Assembly, because in that period the majority of texts or laws it issued had no effect on ten laws that were voted and passed. Six were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Justice. One remained at the discretion of the executive, two remained in the area of decision- making and only one was promulgated. A law limiting the use of cell phones in prisons.

5:28 Faced with the contempt of the Assembly, the Supreme Court of Justice assumed its powers. The final thrust to that Congress. The only political body that was not under the orders of the regime was given by President Maduro on May 1, 17, when he affirmed and announced the decree calling for a National Constituent Assembly to reform the state and draft a new constitution. The opposition called this a blow. State didn' t pass much time and quickly. In July of that same year, Venezuela returned to the polls to choose the National Constituent Assembly, a day of which the opposition decided not to participate. The consultation was also made and, according to data from the National Electoral Council, forty - one comma fifty- three percent of the voters equal to just over eight million people participated in the day. The opposition, for its part, said that the call had been only 12 percent and refused to recognize the election and called it fraudulent. I see this background and imagine a scenario in which, hypothetically, the opposition candidate, Edundo González wins the elections. There is a possibility that the Maduro regime will lose these elections. I transferred that concern to the former Chancellor Maria Angel Holguín, and this he told me, Maduro does not compete with the world alone. González competes against discontent, against despair, against hopelessness, against so many years of an unsustainable situation for many people who

7:01 are going to go out spontaneously to vote and who are motivated to see. I believe that those large concentrations that have been around ed Mundo Gonzalez and María with a crush on the part of the people who have come out to support him, then it is not only against the world, but against everyone who wants, Maduro to leave, that there is a change, that it is like the voice of many people. I hope that people go out to vote massively, because only by voting massively is that a triumph is actually achieved. If the opposition doesn' t vote, if people don' t vote. And the numbers are difficult, because surely Maduro wins. Today there are many polls there, for it is always the one there have been wholesale polls, but they give the world Gonzales about fifty- two between fifty- two and sixty percent, according to the survey, that one sees already ripe between twenty and twenty- five. So let' s say that roof that always had mature because today it' s not having it. But for what it happens that this important one is boated and that it does not remain with very close numbers, because if they do not also enter into a confrontation, in a complexity that becomes very difficult. And I do not see, therefore, the National Electoral Council declaring González a winner with a very small difference, as I said at the beginning. I don' t know if there were lessons at last today, although for many the probability of it happening or at least normal is low. According to the ecoanalytic firm, there are three possible scenarios that

8:35 could prevent transparent and democratic elections, that the elections will be suspended until after those of the United States, that Maduro' s regime discourages and electoral participation, changing voters from their voting center, and a possible fraud of the cn that already has a history of publishing results without an audit. Currently this body is presided over by militants of the governing party, the loving personal friend of President Maduro and also of Silla Flores, the First Lady. Sadly, the shadow of a possible fraud prevents today' s elections from taking place. It ' s there latent because, like I said, the background exists. Although the same government of Venezuela announced that there will be more than 600 international observers from organizations such as the Carter Center, the Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America, the UN and the African Union. Other organisations will not be able to have delegates, such as the European Union, for the sanctions that this group of countries has imposed on government officials. On the other hand, the drama of Venezuelan migration is well known. The figure changes depending on who is asked. According to Lacknor, there are more than seven million, but a large part of Venezuelans outside the country will not be able to vote for the restrictions imposed by the mature regime. To do it. It is estimated that sen se s s s s of nine zero Venezuelans living abroad are written to vote. Another obstacle to a transparent electoral process has been the persecution and disqualification

10:09 of its political rivals, which has been savage, to say the least, since April this year. In Venezuela, five opposition politicians were disqualified from holding public office between twelve months and fifteen years by the Comptroller General of the Republic of Venezuela. But the most striking case of disqualification has been that of the former presidential candidate, María Corina Machado. Machado has been an opposition figure for several years, even in two thousand twelve, being a congressman, confronted the late President Chávez and told him a phrase that still resonates among Venezuelans. Please, you can say that you respect the private sector in Venezuela, when you have dedicated yourself to expropriating that is stealing from what then President Chávez responded to you. I suggest you first win the primaries, right, win the primaries hotel. It' s the first thing I had to do, because it ' s out of rank to debate with ego. Since then, Machado has proven to be a strong opposition leader who even in October last year won the primary opposition elections. It seemed that, after a long time of division within the Venezuelan opposition, it had been fragmented between those who supported the interim government of Waido and those who had not reunified around the figure of Machado. However, since June of last year, the Comptroller General of Venezuela disqualified her from running for office of popular election for fifteen years. Despite that event, the

11:45 opposition quickly elected another candidate, also called Corina, Corina ioris, and to offer a new dismissal or disqualification the table of democratic unity, chose an 80 - year- old academic away from the country' s political hotbeds. Orina Joris is a philosopher and doctor in history who has dedicated her life to the academy. But, as if this story needed another dramatic twist, Joris could not make effective the registration of his candidacy because of a system failure. The complaint made by the opposition is that they did not allow the registration of the candidate endorsed by the mood sabotaging the page of the cn and that, moreover, they only allowed the registration of candidates that did not represent a danger to the Maduro regime. This is where the name Edmundo González appears, a former diplomat who had been put as provisional candidate, who registers and whose mission is to leave another in his place, while the opposition movement decided between Corina Lloris and Manuel Rosales. And although, unlike Corina, Joris González, if he has worked in the public sector as a diplomat in the Foreign Service, he has no choice to be disqualified. El Mundo González Urrutia li was the intention of or votes with fifty- six percent, with more than twenty percentage points above Nicolás Maduro, who has thirty- five percent of the intention to vote.

13:09 Another poll that puts him in the lead is that of meganalysis, in which seventy- one percent of Venezuelans would vote for him and, according to the Diario del País Saul Cabrera, analyst, politician and president of consultants, twenty- one. The opposition candidate has more than 20 percentage points of advantage in the polls. Optimism among opposition sectors is on the rise. There' s not a single Venezuelan person I' ve spoken to in the last 15 days who doesn' t believe Edmundo González will be razing at the polls. What there is distrust is in the will of the Maduro regime to accept defeat. Faced with this data and thinking of a scenario in which González gani thought about what an event would be like to the government with the other institutions occupied by mature chavismo. This is what former MP Julio Borges told me. Many people are afraid of the distance between the July election two thousand twenty- four and the change of government that is February two thousand twenty- five. But honestly, that' s not for me the main challenge. I am sure that as soon as we have the results and we see the strength of the demonstration of the Venezuelan people, the aparatage that is fine, the power will melt. There is going to be a complete change of attitude and there is going to be somehow the possibility of having the steering wheel of that democratic transition.

14:31 Maduro. In the end it has had power because it has the executive and when one has the executive power, in our countries it has the possibility to guide the process and with the vote the renewal and the legitimacy so great that we will achieve this Sunday. All that dictatorial scaffolding. I' m sure it' s gonna melt and it' s gonna be at the service of this new chapter. In Venezuelan history, finding reliable figures about Venezuela is difficult. On the one hand, the Government ceased to provide official data long ago and those it gives are undoubtedly often placed. But there is a particularly alarming number and that of political prisoners in the country. According to the NGO Penal Forum, by the 8th of July two thousand and twenty- four, there were two hundred and eighty- seven political persons, of whom twenty- seven were women, one hundred and forty- nine military personnel and one hundred and forty- two had not been convicted. But in addition, this same organization denounced that there are one hundred and two detainees for supporting the campaign of María Corina Machado and Edmundo González. Perhaps the most striking story is that of the Hernández sisters, who own the Pancho Gril restaurant, a empanadas stand in the state of Guárico where María Corina Machado and members of the campaign committee stopped for breakfast. Two days later, the Hernández sisters received with surprise the visit of SEÑAC officials, which is the integrated national customs and tax administration service.

15:58 The authorities closed this case in joy for fifteen days and that of other traders, truck drivers and people in general who support the campaign of Mundo González are only the most commented, but it has been repeated in other states of the country with hotels where the members of the campaign are staying and, according to the newspaper of the country, although there is no official order, no airline sells tickets to the campaign of Edmundo González due to pressure from the authorities. In the first week of July, the Sebin, a Bolivarian national intelligence service, arrested the driver of a truck in which Machado and González went in a caravan that was made in the city of Valencia, and also the driver of a truck that sent Almitin water. That is why campaigning acts are usually without a platform on a car, because already providers of these services have been arrested who have tried to hire with their party only in the first ten days of campaigning have been arrested more than seventy persons linked to the opposition. These arrests, as reported by the González Campaign, are always arbitrary. Detainees are not informed where they will be taken and do not allow their lawyers to be present.

17:11 In addition, Machado reported that in what happened this year, at least thirty- seven leaders and political leaders close to González Urrutia' s campaign have been arrested and ten mayors have been disbarred. For supporting him, the prosecution charged them with incitement to hatred, which has been answered by Maduro' s regime and Attorney General Tarek william sap is that there is a conspiracy to overthrow President Maduro. In addition, a little over a week ago Maria Corina Machado ' s chief of security was arrested and two of her campaign vehicles were cut off from their brakes and lined with paint. But, on the other hand, there is the campaign of the candidate president, Nicolás Maduro. The president has undertaken a tour of the country that has called mobilizations that still summon many Venezuelans. It seems that the candidate still enjoys a certain popularity. After the deep economic crisis, several organizations have pointed to a slight improvement that I would call the economic performance of Venezuela. According to the International Monetary Fund, modest growth of 4% of gross domestic product is projected by the end of this year. Although it must be borne in mind that Venezuela' s GDP is one of the lowest in Latin America and recently the same mature one boasted of inflation in his country. The month of June that closed yesterday was the month with the lowest inflation in thirty- nine years in the Venezuelan economy. Although,

18:45 as usual, experts tend to take these government data with tweezers, the country comes from living between two thousand seventeen and two thousand twenty- one hyperinflation with monthly increases of up to three digits. The highest was one hundred and one- hundred ninety- six percent in January of two thousand nineteen. For several analysts, the figures it offers to the regime of mature do not convince, according to the voice of America. For Asdrúbal ecuanalytic olive trees. The national economy had closed two thousand twenty- three with a drop of zero comma seven percent compared to two thousand twenty- two. And perhaps it is here that you, as I will ask you, are not Venezuela an oil world power. This should not be a guarantee of wealth. And this is where the situation becomes complex if Venezuela is the country with the largest oil reserve in the world. Thus fra Auxila between two hundred and seventy thousand and three hundred billion barrels of crude oil and all the reserves of cross and natural gas of the country are owned by the State. According to data from the state oil company PDBESA, this item contributed more than six billion dollars to the nation in two thousand twenty- three. In January and February of this year alone, Venezuela exported twenty- seven million barrels of crude oil, an increase of seven comma four percent compared to the same period by two thousand twenty- three and according to President Maduro, oil activity grew by twelve comma ninety- nine percent in the third quarter of two thousand twenty- three, with an increase of

20:15 fourteen comma sixty percent in the extraction of oil, crude oil and natural gas, which generated an increase in oil exports of sixty comma forty- six percent. And even though those numbers look positive, the photo needs to be expanded. According to Horas Medina, President of PDBSA, ad oc at a time the discount that is PEDB SADOC in nineteen hundred and ninety- nine, before Chávez came to power. Venezuela produced three million four hundred and fifty thousand barrels a day. Today the production is eight hundred and seventy- seven thousand barrels per way. The comparison of what Pedbsa produced twenty- five years ago and what it produces now, as it has been due to this decrease, explains it better. The same hour Medina all this, because over time it was destroyed, as in the United States, citco had six refineries of its own.

21:07 He had five or six other refineries in which we acted with parts of fifty- fifty- sixty, but we also had a stake. And today, because it was reduced to three refineries, although as a whole we are the sixth refinery of the United States that today processes eight hundred twenty horrible zero per day and Venezuela, barely, produces that in its entirety. So three million four hundred and fifty went to eight hundred and twenty- eight hundred and forty thousand lurnids. In other words, there is a big difference due to corruption, there is a big difference due to divestment, negligence, neglect, and the very high and total political party influence within Peres. Then it is a big difference, no doubt, to the world for the Maduro regime.

21:52 The oil sanctions imposed by the United States, which include the ban on U S banks new bonds from the Venezuelan government and its state company Petrolera PDBSA and any purchases of Venezuelan oil by U S entities. I' d have all the money deposited in blocked accounts. And this is where PDV Sadoc comes in, which is an institution that was created at the beginning of Juan Whaidó' s interim government to deal with the assets of the oil company abroad. Like citgo, a Venezuelan company that includes a group of oil refiners and gasoline, fubricant and petrochemical marketers in the United States. However, Venezuela is about to lose ownership of this company, valued at about thirteen zero million dollars, one of the most important assets in the country. Why good there are eighteen international creditors, between large and medium enterprises, who demand from Venezuela twenty- one three hundred million dollars for expropriations and defaults during the governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. As economist and professor Francisco Rodríguez told the country, the opposition also has its responsibility for not having designed a more articulated strategy to retain the company, in part because of its internal disputes. Losing this asset would be a catastrophic event for the country' s economy. Seeing all the challenges faced by Venezuela' s largest company and on which much of the country' s economy depends, I wonder how long and what it takes for PDBSA to produce

23:25 more than a million barrels a day again. This was told to me by Horacio Medina, President of Pdreza to OC I believe that in Venezuela it could reach a million barrels once the new government is installed in a matter of very short- term months, and we could reach a million and a half barrels after that moment, about a year and a half ahead. This is on the basis of making repairs, of doing maintenance, of resolving bottlenecks, of putting infrastructure facilities on the day, of being able to reactivate the productive data that is in that area, the related sector and, in addition to this, with a very important support that would have to come from the service companies that are in Venezuela national, international and also, of course, supporting us in the joint ventures. After this and opened the process of opening up to national international capital, because with all certainty, Venezuela will be able to recover its potential at the return of four or five years, until reaching a level of production similar to that we had in the year two thousand. But there is no way that it is pdbsa that will carry this forward and grow in that way, because there are no resources, because the company is practically destroyed and if we think we can keep them as a much more concrete company in some areas and with a production that is much less than it had at the time. Allow me for a moment to think of a scenario in which the

24:56 imposed ones are right, the González world wins the elections and Nicolás more one recognizes the results and surrenders power. The transition to the restoration of democracy and the economy is long. There is still the Assembly, the judicial branch, the National Electoral Council, in short, the other institutions in power of the Maduro regime and seeing what happened with the Assembly of opposition majority in two thousand seventeen, it will not be simple. However, one of the major concerns is the armed forces, which have been politicized to the core and governed by them would not be simple. According to former deputy Julio Borges, there is hope in the younger military and rank and file, which are a large majority that do not agree with Maduro' s regime and cites as evidence that almost ninety percent of political prisoners are young soldiers. But the tension remains in the face of Maduro' s declarations of a civil war a bloodbath if he wins candidate González. Even Brazilian President Lula da Silva, Maduro' s other allied hour, expressed his fear of these sanctions and said that when you lose you leave, what would happen to the military forces in case the opposition wins.

26:07 I moved the question to investigative journalist Roberto Dennis, and he told me so. The behavior of the armed force, without a doubt, let' s say, is going to be a key factor, a determining factor for what may happen on July 28, but also for what comes next. Unfortunately, with Chavismo, the armed forces became a completely ideologized institution at the service not of the government, but of the worse service of the political party, of the peso, of the political party, first of Chávez and after Nicolás Maduro, an institution that before Chavismo let us say, can be said to be, in a certain way, political or not participating, not deliberate, permanently deliberating in politics. That with Chavismo changed the military establishment is not only present in the armed forces themselves, but there are soldiers, commissions, ministries, in governorates, in Alcaldía, controlling different institutions ports and, as I say well, it is key first that it will happen that day, on July 28, if finally the armed force accept a possible defeat of Nicolás Maduro and they also have to comply with the Constitution. But then also what will happen in a possible government of position of Mr Edmundo González from January next year, what will be the behavior of that armed force. Without a doubt, it will probably be the main challenge that this eventual Government has to sustain itself over time, but also to try to reinstitute armed force, without causing vestrificities or

27:38 problems for that same Government. The panorama in any of the mature winning scenarios that Gary González seems complicated. Perhaps a way out could have been a kind of transitional national front where losers had a stake in government for a certain period of time. The path of reconciliation ahead in that country is long and I hope I can get back to the millions of citizens who have had to leave. I am Roberto Pombo and this was chapter ninety- eight of my questions. See you at the next Captain from now on. This chapter of my questions is available on all podcast platforms. This episode was made possible by Kafan.

28:27 Family compensation box. Dirección Roberto Pombo, Producción General, Juan Abel Gutiérrez, Asesor editorial, Daniel San Pedro Espino, Guiones juan Abel Gutiérrez y Johnny Rodríguez. Field production Marcela Salazar and Lucía Beltrán Audio production Carlos Bernard