Caracas Chronicles

#NowWhatVenezuela keeps you informed about what’s happening deep inside la patria—from headline-making events to underreported stories that provide the clearest picture of our reality. This digest is published weekly.

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UCV politely tells chavistas to get the hell out

It’s not every day in Venezuela that a heavyweight institution—especially a public one, and the most important university in the country—tells the government to stop abusing its power and return what it stole. The Central University of Venezuela (UCV) released a statement packed with historical facts and common sense, signed by rector Víctor Rago, demanding that the regime vacate the university’s zonas rentales in Plaza Venezuela, a prime location that connects the east and west sides of Caracas.

Back in 1974, the Venezuelan state had donated this land to UCV so the university could rent out space to private businesses (think bookstores, shops, cafés) and generate income to help fund itself. Caracas’ book fair used to be held there for years. The problem is that, well, the second half of Venezuela’s puntofijista democracy wasn’t exactly the most stable or effective, and the ten hectares of the Zona Rental Norte (which should look like this) weren’t developed until the 1990s. Then came Chávez and his revolución bonita, whose beneficiaries moved into the unfinished buildings.

The statement says that 20 years of efforts to recover the area have led nowhere and, without sugarcoating it, that a mix of chavista institutions and cronies (“powerful economic interests linked to political power”) now act like the landowners, collectin a rent that the university and its professors desperately need.

Together, chavistas and enchufados have cooked up quite the scene: an unfinished bus terminal championed by Caracas mayor Carmen Meléndez, the nearby Centro Comercial Caracas Mall (which someone tried to brand as the city’s “gamer hub” in 2023), and a statue honoring the Red Army’s victory over Hitler in World War II. The same that was unveiled just a few weeks ago by Delcy Rodríguez, Diosdado Cabello, and Vladimir Padrino, while Maduro was in Moscow paying tribute to Putin, and the five staffers of Argentina’s embassy in Caracas were fleeing the country.

Why it matters: This might be the boldest statement made by UCV authorities since the new university council was sworn in July 2023, and shows that patience is running out with the regime’s abuses. After all, what else do ucevistas have to lose? When Maduro was inaugurated on January 10th, police entered the university premises (condemned by Rago) over two banners that were left hanging in a campus building: one that said “truth defeats darkness” and another that simply displayed Edmundo González’s vote count: 7,443,584. During the post-fraud crackdown, six students were jailed. Faculty staff too, like Rocío San Miguel and activist Jesús Armas.

More information: In a February interview with Contrapunto, Rago had offered UCV as a space for “political actors” to meet and reach agreements, but it turns out it’s hard to reason with the violent ones. After nearly two years trying to build bridges, it’s only natural to start calling things out. Just days before the statement came out, Rago had tweeted about the forced disappearance of Eduardo Torres, a human rights advocate from Provea. We now know he’s being held in El Helicoide, accused of terrorism just for running workshops.

Diosdado tries to scare with a wonky bluff

We all know the script: every now and then, the Interior Minister likes to stand in front of a PowerPoint, with some quiet agents in front of him, and present a diagram filled with cartoonish enemies of the nation—caught with weapons, cocaine, toys, you name it. Sometimes they’re opposition figures accused of conspiracy and links to hostile governments, though lately it’s been mayors from Zulia.

This week began with Diosdado announcing that flights between Colombia and Venezuela were suspended because his team had supposedly thwarted a plot to sabotage the regional elections. He claimed they’d caught mercenaries trained by Erik Prince and Ecuador’s Noboa administration, sent by Albanian drug traffickers (with María Corina and Simonovis somehow involved too, as alwaus). He said they had 38 suspects, including 17 foreigners.

Turns out, that same day, a businessman from Barquisimeto was released after being kidnapped for 19 days. His family had paid half a million dollars in crypto to free him. The kidnappers? Eight members of Venezuela’s anti-kidnapping force, CONAS. According to NTN24, their names matched the ones shown in Diosdado’s slides.
In other words, Diosdado is trying to pass off corrupt CONAS officers (part of the National Guard) as María Corina and Erik Prince’s operatives. At least the alleged leader of the group, according to him, is a Colombian-Albanian named Arturo Gómez.

So, what about the vote on Sunday?

In Venezuela, it doesn’t feel much different than any other week. The general sense seems to be that voting alone isn’t seen as a path to change anymore, at least by itself. Not because some politicians tell them to stay home, but because people can draw their own conclusions after watching how the state cracks down, sometimes fatally, on those who helped deliver Edmundo González’s victory ten months ago.

Analyst Ricardo Ríos, from pollster Poder y Estrategia, says that very few people are likely to vote—only about 24% of those registered and living in Venezuela, compared to almost 80% of that population on July 28th—and that PSUV could “win” in 18 states or more. In Zulia and Barinas, it could be a tie (meaning Manuel Rosales and Sergio Garrido aren’t guaranteed reelection, even after their understanding with Maduro & Co). In Miranda, Juan Requesens reportedly has the best shot at getting the most votes.

Who knows, maybe the few chavistas still out there (who honestly aren’t showing much enthusiasm for this vote) will go for Requesens. Either way, the eternal golden boy of chavismo, once seen as Maduro’s successor, was removed after July 28th: Maduro pulled Héctor Rodríguez from Miranda and sent him to the rawboned Ministry of Education, replacing him with a semi-unknown chavista, Elio Serrano, who’s running against Requesens.

Benigno Alarcón, professor and political analyst at UCAB, says it would be a miracle if the opposition wins more than four governorships. Henrique Capriles and Stalin González are complaining that chavismo organized a “clandestine” election—no public information, Excel sheets floating around on Telegram instead of an official timeline. They didn’t even bother demanding proper conditions, even on a tight timetable: after the backstage deals and the lifting of a few political bans, the campaign has been all about “the power of the vote” and the “protest vote.”

Why it matters: That message doesn’t seem to be landing in poorer areas either. You can see it in the frustration of a woman who can’t hide her skepticism as Capriles tries to convince her to vote, and in Crónica Uno’s stories from La Vega, a western Caracas neighborhood still haunted by the regime’s summer crackdown. People there just don’t talk politics on the streets as they used to anymore. And it’s not much different outside the capital: in Bolívar state, a study by three local universities (also quoted by Crónica Uno) found that 37.8% intend to vote. That might sound like an ok figure, but the chavista candidate only needs 20% support to “win.”

Recommended reads:

Runrunes tells the story of Pedro, an older man who went down into an illegal gold mine in Bolívar in search of income. After years working in Guayana’s public industries, he saw firsthand how the gangs almost destroyed his life: where a kilo of chicken costs a day’s work and gang leaders rape whoever they want.

And this deeply reported piece by La Hora de Venezuela shows how Putin, Lukashenko, Ortega, and Maduro use tailor-made elections for their own grip on power.