The government of Venezuela was unaware of the conversations between the United States and Cuba. The negotiations have in effect divided Havana and Caracas.
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There will be no regime change in Venezuela this year. When Nicolás Maduro fails to contain inflation, which will exceed 60 percent and be the highest in the world; when people face more rationing because of a deep economic recession – the International Monetary Fund estimates a plunge of seven percent in GDP this year – the Chavistas will change their face, but won’t lose power.
Maduro’s disgrace is all too evident. The opinion surveys of Datanálisis show that, in November, he got an approval rating of barely 24 percent, which makes him one of the least liked leaders in the hemisphere. The future doesn’t look any better for him if the repeated refusals of “friendly” countries to help Caracas financially, without heroic conditions, are maintained.
Still, this doesn’t mean the opposition will have an easy time winning the parliamentary elections at the end of the year, or that conditions are ripe for Venezuela’s rudder to change hands.
Many people think that, in the new circumstances, Chavism will intensify its measures against the opposition. As the Brookings researcher, Vanda Felbab-Brown said, this won’t be anything new. The same thing has happened in Burma and many other countries where it’s been pretty well proven that economic crises don’t topple these types of governments.
Who will take Maduro’s place? It’s hard to say, mainly because, as Harold Trinkunas, also of Brookings, explained, with the cut in public spending brought about by the fall of oil prices from $96 to $40 a barrel, the president and those close to him will have to choose winners and losers among their friends. They’ll have to decide which faction of the party will keep their fiscal privileges, and which will see them reduced.
Of course, no one should underestimate the ability of the United States, who played a master card by reopening conversations with Cuba. As Trinkunas said, the negotiation drove a wedge between Cuba and Venezuela. The government of Venezuela, which was not kept informed about the conversations, is now surprised and discredited by a political blow, and is passing the hat between Beijing and Riyadh without much success, trying perhaps to play down the importance of the enormous chasm that has opened with the island that could completely change the balance of power within the Alba group and the continent.
The development of this drama about powers would be fascinating and at least entertaining if behind it there were not 31 million people hoping for fewer demonstrations of megalomania and more responsibility for their material well-being.
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Santiago Gutiérrez,
Executive Editor
sgutierrez@latintrade.com
