Mac Margolis
When a Venezuelan patrol boat intercepted a Guyanese fishing trawler late last month, the third such blue-water confrontation in a matter of weeks, investors, diplomats and the government in Georgetown were understandably alarmed. Was Venezuela poised to invade its neighbor and seize a stake in the world’s newest major oil find?
Not a chance. Yes, Venezuela has long chafed at its eastern border on the conceit that the line drawn by big power arbitration 121 years ago was theft; recovering the purportedly purloined territory has been part of Venezuelan national lore, gospel for its school kids and a perennial pretext for harassing the Guyanese. Yet President Nicolas Maduro is nothing if not a master of the political head fake, eager to goose nationalist brio, flog empty partisan talking points and deploy cheap theatrics to deflect attention from his cratering economy.
Tellingly, Venezuela has repeatedly declined to press its territorial claim before the International Court of Justice which is hearing the case at Guyana’s request. “Note that Venezuela isn’t harassing Exxon drill ships or international carriers,” Christian Wagner, of the political risk consultancy Maplecroft, told me. “Venezuela has neither the resources nor the will to fight this battle.”
That may be because bullying an undersized neighbor and bemoaning a historical injury make for better optics than going to court in a case that analysts say could easily go against the Bolivarian supremo.
Welcome to the Maduro method, where a loss is a win, posturing beats diplomacy and the disaster that is turning Venezuela into a failed state is also keeping its accidental autocrat firmly in the palace. Countering it will call for the fractious political opposition to stop caviling, shrug off months of inertia and reclaim its role in shaping the public conversation. “The opposition needs to realize it doesn’t have the same hand it had two years ago, when National Assembly leader Juan Guaido became interim president,” said Geoff Ramsey of the Washington Office on Latin Ameica. “They’re not going to get anywhere if they sit back and insist on being treated as the legitimate government. The opposition need to remobilize.”
This top-down script isn’t new. Former strongman Hugo Chavez centralized power, captured institutions, gamed elections and smothered dissent when it suited him. Yet he was blessed by the commodities boom, which sent oil rents soaring and bought indulgence from heat-seeking international investors for his lavish ways and the spendthrift Latin American pink tide he inspired.
The difference is that Maduro has managed to maneuver even as Venezuela declines, as Bloomberg News reported, by swapping out legacy Chavistas for consiglieri, evading U.S. oil sanctions with ghost ships and keeping military brass close through the sharing of handsome public contracts. Lately he has added a touch of heresy to the mix, letting once-taboo dollars flow for those lucky enough to have them, sending fast-lane Venezuelans on shopping sprees. And for those who demur? Let them have sham elections, spies and thugs. Seizing boats and harassing border communities are just the latest additions to the oeuvre.
Gone are the encomiums to the Bolivarian revolution and 21st century socialism, never mind the visions of redemption and plenty that Maduro used to juice a generation of Chavistas and devotees. Ideals, you may argue, were never central to Chavismo’s toolbox. Yet Maduro’s pivot to venal survivalism is a pragmatic, if cynical, gambit in an existential power struggle with the flummoxed national opposition, which has squandered its popular mojo.
Don’t expect Guaido to relinquish his claim to head the legitimate Venezuelan government. Yet that mandate will mean little unless the opposition can regroup and rebrand itself as an ecumenical front with a pragmatic agenda. One move Guaido could make is to step out of the shadow of his mentor, charismatic but divisive firebrand Leopoldo Lopez, who is still seen as the opposition’s man behind the curtain. “The name of the game now is finding small victories, and defending whatever small democratic spaces are left in the country and occupying them,” Ramsey said. That strategy includes fighting for humanitarian aid, even if Maduro cops the credit, and participating in elections, even when the rules are rigged. “Without social mobility and an agenda, the opposition cannot rebuild,” said Ramsey.
Meantime, the pandemic that has officially taken around 2,000 lives, but which independent physicians report may have killed six to seven times that many, rages on. Maduro’s headline measure to fight the pandemic to now? “Miracle drops,” a treatment he flogged on social media, until Facebook removed his posts.
There is no shot for Maduro’s bad-faith rule, but Venezuela’s opposition would do well to drop its fists and slug down its own dose of realpolitik.
Mac Margolis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Latin and South America.
Source: Bloomberg