This is the ballot paper for the presidential elections in Venezuela on 28 July. The unpopular autocracy cannot legitimately win these elections and has to reach deep into its bag of dirty tricks. This ballot shows how.

1: Thirteen cards for Maduro

On the top left we have the autocratic ruling party PSUV. It is putting forward the incumbent President Nicolás Maduro for re-election. The first row is then made up of nine other smaller and larger parties that also support him.

The PSUV was established at the time by Hugo Chávez, who undermined the rule of law and subjugated key state institutions. The electoral authority is also compromised. The question is not whether the autocracy will use dirty tricks, but which ones.

Its general strategy is ‘divide and rule’: it abuses the levers of power to make it impossible for the democratic opposition to participate in the elections or to confuse voters. At the same time, it encourages wild candidacies by corrupt opportunists or splinter groups. Again: divide and rule.

2: Not even one card for the real opposition candidate

The unified coalition of democratic opposition parties has this card here, the Mesa de la Unidad Democratica. It’s called the Unified Platform these days, but hey, you take what you get… Its actual candidate is Maria Corina Machado - but she was denied the right to participate in these elections. She then tried to register a substitute candidate, who was also rejected.

Finally, after several attempts, the opposition was able to register a previously unknown diplomat: Edmundo González Urrutia. The opposition’s strategy is now to unite all its votes behind this unity candidate. It wants to achieve a clear victory at the ballot box and verify the votes by deploying its own election observers so that the autocracy cannot covertly falsify the election.

Some of this has already worked out well: since registration, two other opposition parties have backed Edmundo González. Machado has also been able to transfer much of her popularity to Gonzalez. According to the polls, he would currently get about twice as many votes as Maduro.

3: Opposition parties taken over by the regime

But the autocracy has other levers. Let’s take a look at the remaining candidates, which according to polls together only account for around 5% of the vote.

The most important parties behind the unified opposition coalition are Machado’s Vente Venezuela party, which has been banned from registering as a political party since 2015, then Voluntad Popular, Primero Justicia, Acción Democratica, COPEI…

But the regime ‘intervened’ in these parties. In other words, the supreme court of Venezuela arbitrarily removed the actual leaders of these parties. They were replaced by opportunists and corrupt individuals who are now appearing on the ballot paper as candidates for these parties. Such politicians, who claim to be independent but in fact collude with the autocracy, are called often hashly rejected as ‘alacránes’, or scorpions. The ousted, real leaders of these parties support the unity opposition and Edmundo Gonzalez…

Incidentally, the Communist Party of Venezuela also intervened because it did not want to support Maduro.

4: Wild candidates get easy access

But that’s not all: while the unity opposition only just managed to get one card with a replacement candidate of the actual candidate’s replacement candidate, a number of smaller wild candidatures were given easy access. It is perhaps not surprising that these third party candidates preach a path of reconciliation, promise the end of polarisation, the overcoming of the conflict, etc. - all the while a dictatorship is being built.

The most important figures here are the comedian Benjamín Rausseo, a popular pastor Javier Bertucci and the lawyer Antonio Ecarri.

• Benjamín Rausseo competes with Conde. He is a comedian and initially took part in the MUD primaries, but then withdrew. He also wants to run a campaign without ‘hate’ or revenge.
• Javier Bertucci of El Cambio is a popular evangelical pastor and is curiously supported by the government.
• Antonio Ecarri of Lápiz portrays himself as a great conciliator and strives for equidistance from the government (‘the worst government in the history of Venezuela’) and the opposition (‘also a disaster’). The opposition calls him corrupt and makes a big fuss about the fact that Maduro invited him to the Miraflores presidential palace.
• Claudio Fermín from Soluciones (H48) also wants to ‘end polarisation’. He has been active in politics for a long time.
• Enrique Márquez from Centrados (E35) is a genuine opposition figure and wants to ‘overcome’ the conflict. He did not support the MUD’s election boycott in 2018, which turned out to be a mistake, and was expelled from Nuevo Tiempo as a result. Now he thinks Machado’s disqualification was unfair - but now the field is open again. Nevertheless, he says that he would withdraw if there was another candidate with a better chance against Maduro. Let’s see if he keeps his promise.

5: Create confusion

Last but not least, I would like to point out how suspiciously similar the parties ‘Min Unidad’ and ‘Venezuela Unidad’ are to the opposition logo. This falls into the category of ‘creating confusion’.

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