By: Insight Crime
July 25, 2024
This Sunday’s presidential elections will define not only the democratic future of Venezuela but its criminal evolution, and President Nicolás Maduro has deployed illegal and repressive tools in a bid to cement his power for another six years.
“If they do not want Venezuela to fall into a bloodbath, into a fratricidal civil war caused by fascists, let us guarantee the greatest success, the greatest victory in the electoral history of our people,” said Maduro during a campaign event in the capital, Caracas, on July 17.
Maduro has cause for concern. Nearly 60% of voters intend to vote for opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia and only 24.6% for Maduro, according to a survey conducted by the Center for Political and Government Studies at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and the pollster Delphos.
As Maduro’s popularity has fallen, the regime has turned to its hybrid criminal governance model. Throughout his time in power, Maduro has made alliances with criminal actors and used criminal revenues to prop up his authority and guarantee the loyalty of key political and military figures.
Maduro’s government has not hesitated to deploy its criminal allies when threatened in the past. In the lead up to the elections, state security forces and non-state armed groups (NSAGs) have cooperated to intimidate opposition candidates and suppress their supporters.
And these groups have their own motives for ensuring a Maduro victory: The outcome of the July 28 elections impacts not just the government, but all the armed groups that benefit from the impunity and privileges that their alliance with the state provides, and they are willing to fight to hold on to that.
Non-State Armed Groups Shape Voter Behavior
On a recent visit to Tumeremo, a mining town located in the municipality of Sifontes, in the southern state of Bolívar, InSight Crime witnessed hundreds of people dressed in red T-shirts, the color of Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela – PSUV), getting off buses. Accompanied by motorcyclists wearing the same color, the group gathered in the town plaza for a campaign event supporting Maduro.
According to local sources who asked to remain unnamed for security reasons, the people in red were from Las Claritas, a mining area near Tumeremo controlled by the Sindicato de Las Claritas. In early July, the criminal group forced businesses and mines to close for a day and pressured residents to attend the pro-government campaign event.
In the past, the gang allegedly forced residents to go out and vote, even entering polling stations to “help” people cast their ballots, residents said.
“You would just hand over your ID card, put down your fingerprint, and that’s it. You couldn’t say anything,” said one resident. “And that’s what is happening right now as well.”
In the 2021 regional elections, PSUV member and current governor of Bolívar Ángel Marcano obtained more than 80% of the votes in the San Isidro parish, epicenter of the Sindicato de Las Claritas’ power.
In the state of Táchira, on the Venezuela-Colombia border, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), a Colombian guerrilla group active in both countries, has also tipped the electoral balance in favor of the regime.
“In all the border municipalities, illegal armed groups drive by where we are campaigning in their pickup trucks in the mornings and at night to intimidate us,” a social leader who supports the opposition told InSight Crime.
In addition to carrying out patrols and inspections in municipalities such as San Cristóbal, Junín, Rubio, Seboruco, and Ureña, the ELN has also been accused of distributing pamphlets across Táchira threatening social leaders and painting bull’s eyes on the houses of opposition leaders.
The NSAGs’ political meddling in Táchira and Bolívar is part of a broader national trend. Armed colectivos — pro-government paramilitary groups that enforce the government’s agenda — have also been active in these elections, and will serve as a strategic fallback if the results do not favor the regime.
Armed Civilians Safeguarding the Ballots: The ‘Colectivos’
During a government event in the state of Monagas on February 24, PSUV Vice President Diosdado Cabello announced that 1,416 men and women were joining the ranks of the Popular Units for Peace (Uppaz).
“In Monagas, we tell traitors: if you overstep, if you try to destabilize and conspire, we will hunt you down, we will find you,” Cabello said. “Our commander has said that for peace, we need an army, and today, following President Nicolás Maduros’ instructions, we are organizing an army for peace in all of Venezuela.”
The Uppaz, announced by Maduro in October 2023, are the latest version of the colectivos, which have for years operated as shock forces in popular demonstrations and repressed opposition activities.
Another similar group, the Peace Defenders Corps (Cuadrillas Defensoras de la Paz – Cupaz), was created in 2019 to enforce state control in response to national protests. The Cupaz, which exist in 10 of Venezuela’s 23 states, not only exert social and political control in their territories, but many factions are involved in extortion, robbery, kidnapping, and micro-trafficking.
In Caracas, the cradle of the colectivos in Venezuela, local media have reported how groups in the 23 de Enero neighborhood have used their control over the Local Supply and Production Committee (CLAP) program to coerce voters. According to residents, the colectivos threaten to withhold state aid from people who vote for the opposition.
Although there has not been much reported action related to the elections from Uppaz groups so far, their numbers are growing. In addition to the more than 1,400 recruits in Monagas, the governor of Táchira announced 1,200 new members on July 18.
As the ranks of these pro-government colectivos swell, the potential for intimidation during Sunday’s elections increases.
“The colectivos will defend everything they have achieved so far, and they will do it with weapons and with their lives if necessary,” said a member of a 23 de Enero colectivo who preferred to remain unnamed.
State Agents Enforce Fear Campaign
Not all the dirty work has been delegated to criminal groups — state security forces have also taken an active role in the repression. With the support of judges and prosecutors, they have arrested over a hundred people, conducted ongoing manhunts, and intimidated the opposition and its supporters.
In January 2024, Maduro called on the military, police, political allies, and his supporters to take action against the threat of a supposed coup d’état. Within days, several opposition party murals and headquarters were vandalized, painted with the label “Furia Bolivariana,” the slogan for Maduro’s campaign of state repression.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado was disqualified from running for president by the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) on January 26, and a wave of political violence perpetrated by state agents soon followed.
Maduro’s government has used violence to intimidate the opposition and stifle popular dissent in the past, during the mass protests of 2014 and 2017, for example. But, the state has always counted on other tools as well as greater popularity. Now, with polls showing the number of voters against him more than double those who support him, violence may be the only tool that remains.
In the last six months, opposition political leaders, journalists, and civil society leaders have been arrested and persecuted throughout Venezuela. In April, in Portuguesa, in the center-west of the country, officials of the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) arbitrarily detained three leaders of the opposition parties Vente Venezuela and Primero Justicia. A journalist and three opposition political activists were detained in Vargas, in the center-north of the country, in June.
As of July 16, 102 people have been detained for being related to the opposition campaign team or supporting Machado and González, according to Foro Penal, a Venezuelan nonprofit that provides pro bono legal assistance to victims of arbitrary detention.
More than 70 of the 102 people detained were arrested by security forces since July 4 when the presidential campaign officially began. Since Foro Penal released its report, there have been two additional arrests: Machado’s security chief, who was released a day later, and a union leader from Monagas.