Caracas Chronicles

The Venezuelan government needs to impose a narrative in which, under its own authoritarian criteria, it defines and characterizes the reconfiguration of the opposition. This urgency stems from the need to provide a media response—both to domestic and international audiences—in the face of the electoral fraud perpetrated on July 28.

Not because legitimacy is necessary to remain in power, nor because it is perceived as indispensable to attract foreign investment, but because international alliances across the leftist spectrum—with Venezuela serving for at least fifteen years as a moral beacon and pioneer of the so-called second progressive wave—are the ideological anchor and the political backbone of a project that today presents itself, unabashedly, as anti-national and anti-popular.

There is indeed a new opposition setup in Venezuela, but it looks very different from the one the government describes.

To understand why it has emerged, we must go back to the moment when institutional measures began signaling the authoritarian turn. While under Hugo Chávez the judiciary and the administrative apparatus were already used to narrow the margin of action for adversaries, it was from 2012 onward that political disqualifications, imposed by the Comptroller General and ratified by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, became systematic, barring key figures from running for office—even without prior court rulings.

Since then, 1,441 people have been disqualified from political activity. This indiscriminate authoritarian mechanism has expelled from the electoral arena leaders across the entire ideological spectrum, from right to left.

The current leadership does not seek dialogue with other forces, does not promote the building of strategic unity, and remains trapped in a maximalist and utopian discourse.

Repression has not been limited to electoral bans: dozens of political leaders, activists, and grassroots militants have been forcefully disappeared, imprisoned, and tortured. Since the protest cycles of 2014 and 2017, the number of political prisoners has fluctuated but never disappeared, showing that jail serves as both warning and punishment. Judicial processes are typically marked by lack of due process, the use of military courts against civilians, and arbitrary detentions, often accompanied by reports of torture and cruel treatment.

On top of individual repression, there has been an assault on party structures. Since 2012, the Supreme Tribunal has intervened in 13 opposition organizations, appointing ad hoc boards aligned with the government and seizing control of their symbols, electoral tickets, and candidacies. This pattern of judicialización has fragmented opposition representation, weakened its competitiveness, and sown confusion among voters. Even historic parties have been stripped of their legitimate leadership, leaving the government to decide who legally represents the opposition.

After this dismantling of the party system, the stage was indeed set for the emergence of a new opposition. But just as repression has cut across the ideological spectrum, this new political landscape also reflects the same heterogeneity.

If we peel back the layers of propaganda—both state propaganda and the mainstream opposition’s own—we can more accurately identify the makeup of this new opposition.

Opposition actors in late-stage chavismo

There are three main groups of actors that can be distinguished fairly quickly, including one more that is still in the making.

The first is led by a leadership legitimized in the July 28 elections, represented by Vente Venezuela and María Corina Machado. The current leadership does not seek dialogue with other forces, does not promote the building of strategic unity, and remains trapped in a maximalist and utopian discourse that loses strength as it fails to yield results.

The second bloc is made up of an opposition functional to the government’s interests. It consists of small local parties formed out of splits among younger leaders of the traditional opposition —mainly Primero Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo, and Voluntad Popular. These organizations, created in the last four years, are led by politicians with prior experience in municipal councils of major cities. Their presence is concentrated in urban areas of central Venezuela, where they administer certain quotas of local power tacitly allowed by the government. These quotas serve as a mere simulation of democracy, granted by the act of participating in elections.

It is important to note that political science clearly identifies this kind of “functional opposition” in authoritarian contexts. In her book Political Institutions under Dictatorship, political scientist Jennifer Gandhi explains how nominally democratic institutions—such as parliaments and parties—become strategic tools for regimes to distribute concessions to potential opposition forces in order to neutralize threats and secure cooperation from actors outside the ruling core.

Can chavismo have continuity without Chávez? And if so, can that continuity be democratic and popular?

A key example of this co-optation strategy—bridging the ruling elite and traditionally opposition-aligned sectors—can be seen not only in the absorption of local political leaderships but also in the incorporation of important segments of the national bourgeoisie. This project of building an “economically efficient authoritarianism” began under Tarek El Aissami, from his time as Oil Minister through his tenure as Vice President for the Economy.

The third sector identifiable in the reconstruction of the opposition has fallen victim to the authoritarian logic of polarization. It lacks a defined identity and its own narrative, and it has failed to break with the populist, dualistic framework imposed by the government. As a result, it remains confined to a narrow space, oscillating between cooperating with authoritarian demands and attempting to subvert them through an alternative logic, distinct from that of the hegemonic opposition. Its proposal leans toward building a nationalist, dialogue-oriented opposition capable of confronting the government without cornering it —and without making the transition dependent on international support.

Chavismo: a new anti-Maduro force?

When we speak of the opposition group now in formation, we speak of chavismo. After the death of Hugo Chávez, the first questions raised inside and outside chavismo were whether the political project could survive, and if so, whether continuity would come through democratic alternation or through power capture. Neither question had a clear answer while Chávez remained in charge.

The 2013 opposition campaign grasped this moment well with its slogan “Maduro is not Chávez,” planting the seeds of doubt that drew new support beyond its traditional base. The votes chavismo lost to Henrique Capriles produced a near technical tie that rattled a project with authoritarian traits, but which still retained a certain legacy of competitiveness.

The grassroots remained firm after 2013, and the first wave of chavista defections came from the elite: Luisa Ortega Díaz, Miguel Rodríguez Torres, Rafael Ramírez, Andrés Izarra, Jorge Giordani, Héctor Navarro, Ana Elisa Osorio, Gabriela Ramírez, among others. The loyalty of the rank-and-file was largely sustained by economic sanctions and external threats. The “economic war” narrative promoted by state propaganda resonated with a base increasingly focused solely on survival.

This new chavista opposition won’t be a viable political project to seek power for a long time, but for many will remain a source of belonging, identity, and social positioning.

But starting with the dismantling of the welfare state under Maduro’s first government, the defunding of public health and education, and economic policies that prioritized foreign debt payments over reducing inequality, dissatisfaction began to spread among sectors of chavismo that had not yet viewed the construction of a repressive, anti-popular state as problematic. While political repression targeted the right-wing opposition, the left—still not persecuted at that time—defended its own turf: the judicialization of its parties, labor struggles, and union demands.

That was when grassroots organizations of workers and popular sectors began mobilizing to defend the Constitution and reclaim lost social and labor rights. The state then shifted its repression toward the poor through the creation of the FAES —an shock unit within the National Bolivarian Police—which in turn gave rise to rudimentary organizing among the families of victims of extrajudicial killings: people with no political affiliation, but unmistakably from the most vulnerable layers of society.

After the dismantling of the welfare state, and following the economic adjustment imposed with brutal repression of the poor, the presidential election on July 28, 2024, stands out as the political event that definitively broke with the participatory democracy once heralded by Chávez. For the first time in its history, chavismo clung to power against the popular will. This marks an unprecedented rupture for a project that once enjoyed extraordinary popularity, and it poses a new challenge for the ruling elite, the Armed Forces, and historical chavismo itself.

The “imperialist terrorist” narrative has collapsed, and the courage of those who stand up to repression can prove contagious.

It was also in the wake of the July 28 fraud that a group of mothers of political prisoners emerged in the post-electoral context, beginning to organize and pressure institutions and public opinion. Mostly women without political affiliation but with ties to chavista leaders in poor neighborhoods, this group—especially after the kidnapping of one of its spokespersons—represents the most significant fracture within chavismo to date. It directly revives, without ambiguity, the question first raised in 2012: Can chavismo have continuity without Chávez? And if so, can that continuity be democratic and popular?

Although the formation of this new opposition nucleus is still in progress, we can already infer from the repression it faces that a significant share of the chavista base understands that the movement can only continue by breaking with the authoritarianism of those who now claim to represent it. This new chavista opposition won’t be a viable political project to seek power for a long time, but for many will remain a source of belonging, identity, and social positioning.

The incorporation of chavismo into the opposition presents a new challenge to an authoritarianism seeking consolidation. The government’s main problem is that no smear campaign is credible against a base that has spent more than 25 years working alongside the needs of local communities and in alignment with Chávez’s policies. The “imperialist terrorist” narrative has collapsed, and the courage of those who stand up to repression can prove contagious. Whether political leaders understand this scenario—or choose to ignore it—remains to be seen.