Perhaps he is not aware of it but it is very possible that Nicolás Maduro He went down in history for having managed to generate a record number of exiles from the country of which he claims to be a patriot.
The populist national verbiage inherited from Hugo Chávez places these characters at the crossroads of presenting themselves as saviors of their people, but the most obvious thing that they have caused is a great division among Venezuelans and they have launched an army of retreating soldiers who have left of the country in search of hope. According to UNHCR, 7.7 million Venezuelans have already left. Of them, 6.5 million have been welcomed by countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
With Maduro it is a temptation to think that things will get worse because that has been the pattern of Venezuela’s future since he assumed the presidency. According to a survey conducted last month by the company Delphos, 40% of Venezuelans are already thinking about emigrating, mainly due to the country’s economic situation. If Maduro were to remain in power beyond the elections to be held in July, this figure could be even higher.
I commented in my previous column that the moment of truth has arrived in Venezuela and that we do believe what we are seeing on the street together with the opinion polls, the political change is irreversible but as that old Spanish saying goes “the goat pulls the mountain” and in recent days we have heard news that makes us fear again for the cleanliness of the electoral process.
Elvis Amoroso, president of the electoral power where Chavismo has a majority and very close to Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, announced this week that “the invitation issued last March to the European Union to send of an observation mission to the Venezuelan elections on July 28.
The reason that is argued for abroad has to do with the sanctions that Brussels maintains on some Venezuelan officials. Although some sanctions have been lifted, Jorge Rodríguez did not think they were enough and he called European politicians “rude, bastards, scoundrels, illegal and illegitimate.”
It would seem that it is a crisis generated, paradoxically, by a gesture of rapprochement between Europe and the leaders of Chavismo. Something very surprising and that alerts us to the real reasons. Who has nothing to hide, does not lock himself in his house and draw the curtains. The countries they make up are an example of democracy and their electoral processes are at the forefront of the world. His presence in Venezuela on July 28 would be a great boost to Chavismo’s will to accept fair play and its consequences, but this slam of the door once again resurrects the specter of the trap.
To avoid a new mass flight of Venezuelans and Maduro once again pressing the button on the machine for manufacturing exiles, we must then work in two directions. Convince Chavismo to keep the windows open and that they must respect the electoral process on the one hand. With the addition that there must be a successful exit for him to leave Miraflores along with his team of high-level collaborators.
The second task is to give confidence to those considering fleeing that there is a future in the country for a prosperous economy that will impact job opportunities and standards of living. To achieve this, we must continue to encourage foreign investment and the presence of companies from outside the country. An example is the gas license to operate in Venezuela granted by OFAC to BP and the Trinidad and Tobago oil company, as well as other individual licenses for Maurel Prom, Repsol and Aruba.
Investment, work, good business practices and respect for the environment. Factors that the Chavista regime has not taken care of in the last 25 years and that must be implemented, leaving behind the US sanctions policy. More democracy and more investment to promote the transition. A winning recipe that they should apply is whether Trump or Biden is in the White House starting in November.
