When Nicolás Maduro threat­ened to seize the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion which gen­er­a­tions of Venezue­lans have been told is part of Venezuela, he struck gold in terms of a po­lit­i­cal cam­paign is­sue. His na­tion­al­ist cause and sov­er­eign­ty call ral­lied peo­ple.

 In­ter­views of Venezue­lan cit­i­zens by the in­ter­na­tion­al press have re­vealed that Venezue­lan feel­ing of own­er­ship of the dis­put­ed Es­se­qui­bo re­gion is strong, re­gard­less of whether they sup­port­ed Pres­i­dent Maduro or re­sent­ed him for the so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal de­te­ri­o­ra­tion in Venezuela.

The Maduro Gov­ern­ment claimed a mas­sive turnout of over ten mil­lion vot­ers. Un­of­fi­cial ob­servers at the polls, in­clud­ing rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al press, did not see heavy polling day ac­tiv­i­ty, nor lines at polling sta­tions. Scep­tics won­dered if two mil­lion vot­ers had turned up to vote on five ques­tions, and the Maduro Gov­ern­ment had in­ter­pret­ed that as ten mil­lion votes, de­lib­er­ate­ly con­fus­ing the is­sues of vot­ers ver­sus votes!

Still, two mil­lion vot­ers is a size­able num­ber. In the Op­po­si­tion pri­ma­ry some weeks be­fore, 2.4 mil­lion peo­ple had vot­ed, with Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do get­ting over two mil­lion votes. So, two mil­lion vot­ers in an Op­po­si­tion pri­ma­ry and two mil­lion vot­ers hav­ing a say in a gov­ern­ment ref­er­en­dum on an im­por­tant is­sue of na­tion­al con­cern make the bal­ance of sup­port for those who con­tin­ue to live and op­er­ate in Venezuela fair­ly even.

Even if one con­cedes that the ref­er­en­dum is­sues al­lowed vot­ers to cross par­ty lines with­out feel­ing con­flict­ed.

There can be lit­tle doubt that the Op­po­si­tion forces in Venezuela have or­gan­ised and gar­nered sup­port over the last decade de­spite the Op­po­si­tion in Venezuela be­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly di­vid­ed, frag­ment­ed, and un­co­op­er­a­tive.

 Juan Guai­do be­came a cen­tral fig­ure in Op­po­si­tion pol­i­tics and rose to lead the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly. He had mil­lions of peo­ple ral­ly in sol­i­dar­i­ty with him and was even recog­nised at one point as the Pres­i­dent of Venezuela in key glob­al cen­tres of pow­er in the West­ern Hemi­sphere and Eu­rope. Nico­las Maduro, us­ing pres­i­den­tial au­thor­i­ty, con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er, the law, and the mil­i­tary and ral­ly­ing in­ter­na­tion­al al­liances and re­sources, made it dif­fi­cult for Guai­do, who was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly de­posed.

He then lost Op­po­si­tion and pop­u­lar sup­port fast. He has now gone in­to ex­ile.

Pres­i­dent Maduro does not take kind­ly to threats to his pow­er and au­thor­i­ty. He worked with the Op­po­si­tion to ease po­lit­i­cal ten­sions by in­clud­ing them on the Elec­tions Com­mis­sion. But when Maria Macha­do be­gan to emerge as a for­mi­da­ble can­di­date who could unite the Op­po­si­tion, win in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port and ral­ly the mass­es, he had her charged with trea­son and banned her from be­ing a can­di­date in the elec­tion for ten years.

When she ral­lied two mil­lion peo­ple to over­whelm­ing­ly win the Op­po­si­tion pri­ma­ry, he cast doubt on the pri­ma­ry elec­tion process, ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of in­flat­ing the vot­ing num­bers, ac­cused her of sub­ver­sion and coun­tered with a strat­e­gy to ral­ly na­tion­al­ist fer­vour and ag­gres­sive im­puls­es as he mount­ed a cam­paign for ter­ri­to­r­i­al an­nex­a­tion of what since 1999 by law has been a full two-thirds of British Guiana, now Guyana since na­tion­al In­de­pen­dence in 1966.

Part of the agree­ment be­tween Venezuela and the USA has to do with free and fair elec­tions due in 2024 in re­turn for the sanc­tions al­ready lift­ed from the Maduro regime. The ref­er­en­dum al­lowed Maduro to test his or­gan­i­sa­tion­al, mo­bil­i­sa­tion and elec­toral strength in the face of for­mi­da­ble Op­po­si­tion ca­pac­i­ty. Now, be­yond pro­pa­gan­da and pub­lic re­la­tions strate­gies, Pres­i­dent Maduro would have a fair idea of what his re­al sup­port base might be and where his weak­ness­es are. The ref­er­en­dum served its pur­pose.

The in­spired move by Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­salves of St Vin­cent, of talk­ing to Pres­i­dents Nico­las Maduro and Ir­faan Ali and bring­ing them face to face amid UN, CELAC and Cari­com com­pa­ny, cor­rect­ly timed, worked out well and the Ar­gyle Agree­ment ex­ceed­ed ex­pec­ta­tions in what it achieved–no vi­o­lence, peace, a joint work­ing com­mit­tee, open com­mu­ni­ca­tion, a mech­a­nism for the man­age­ment of any un­in­tend­ed cri­sis, con­tin­u­ing di­a­logue, a time­line for a progress re­port and con­tin­u­ing in­ter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion and guid­ance, even while ac­knowl­edg­ing that on the is­sue of the bor­der dis­pute, Guyana and Venezuela stand poles apart.

In 2024, Nicholas Maduro must man­age four things on si­mul­ta­ne­ous tracks (1)his re­la­tion­ship with the USA and the de­liv­ery of in­ter­na­tion­al­ly su­per­vised free and fair elec­tions (2) a peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of the bor­der con­flict with Guyana (3) a vic­to­ri­ous elec­toral cam­paign or the con­se­quences of an elec­tion loss. 4)Or re­cede in­to iso­la­tion with elec­tions post­poned.

Some of T&T’s prospects rest on these.

Mer­ry Christ­mas to all.