Editor’s note: Later on December 4th the CNE claimed that more than 10m Venezuelan voters had participated in the referendum.
IT IS THE one issue that almost the whole population agrees upon. For generations, Venezuelans have been taught that the correct map of their country should include a large chunk of next-door Guyana. The dispute has gained more prominence since 2015, when ExxonMobil, an American oil giant, started making a series of massive discoveries off the Guyanese coast, some of which are in waters that Venezuela claims. So when the propagandists inside President Nicolás Maduro’s regime were pondering how they could demonstrate that their unpopular leader, who faces an election next year, could still mobilise the masses, a referendum on the centuries-old border dispute seemed like a promising tactic. On December 3rd, with much patriotic fanfare and blanket coverage on state TVthe vote was held.
Voters were asked five questions, exploring in some detail how the existing border, agreed to in 1899, could be declared illegal and re-drawn. The most provocative question came last, asking voters if they agreed that two-thirds of the current land mass of Guyana should be absorbed by Venezuela, forming an entire new state. The result of the referendum was wholly predictable, especially since the regime holding it has a reputation for fiddling elections. Indeed, there was no organised “no” campaign. According to the government-controlled electoral authority, the CNEall five questions received more than 95% of yes votes.
But turnout was low. The CNE said that 10.6m votes had been cast. But it declined to say whether it was counting each question as one vote. The assumption is that it was, and that fewer than 2.2m of 21m registered voters bothered to participate. That is less than the 2.4m who took part in October in opposition primaries, which were not government backed. Maria Corina Machadoa fierce critic of Mr Maduro and who is banned from office by the regime, won those with a thumping 93% of the vote.
Indeed, the mood on referendum day seemed distinctly apathetic. Across the country barely any queues were reported outside the thousands of polling stations. Even government broadcasters, practised at giving the impression that Venezuela is a thriving democracy, struggled to find many voters to film.
Did that worry Mr Maduro? Seemingly not. “The Venezuelan people spoke loud and clear,” the autocrat declared, wearing a bespoke white referendum tracksuit top, as he addressed supporters at a rally after the referendum near the presidential palace in Caracas. He was right, but not in the way he meant. The exercise has backfired. If the people could not be persuaded to vote in large numbers for a profitable slice of Guyana, what hope might Mr Maduro have that they would re-elect him in a fair election, assuming the regime decided to hold one? “Here’s the problem: he’s a terrible candidate, but he doesn’t realise it,” says one Venezuelan businessman.
The timing of the referendum also appears to be something of an own goal for the usually savvy Mr Maduro. In October representatives of his regime signed an agreement in Barbados with members of the opposition over how the presidential election might be held in 2024. In return for some modest pledges, the United States lifted a raft of sanctions for an initial six months, most significantly on the state energy company PDVSA. This means that the regime can begin selling its oil at market prices rather than on the discounted black market. If this relief is extended in April, and if PDVSA can increase production, the regime could get a $5bn-6bn windfall in 2024, says Francisco Monaldi of Rice University in Houston, Texas. That is the equivalent of around 5% of estimated GDP.
President Joe Biden’s administration recently reminded Mr Maduro that he needed to fulfil his part of the deal, by releasing American prisoners and beginning the process of rehabilitating banned politicians, including Ms Machado, by the end of November. Mr Maduro’s government appeared to be partially complying with that demand hours before the deadline expired. It announced on November 30th that opposition politicians could appeal against their bans until December 15th. (But, although the regime released five Venezuelan political prisoners in October, nearly 300 remain behind bars.)
Mr Maduro has now chosen to become a pariah once more. The referendum has angered Venezuela’s neighbours. The Caricom grouping of Caribbean states issued a statement strongly backing Guyana’s territorial integrity. Brazil, which under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has avoided blaming Mr Maduro for the economic disaster that Venezuela has been through under his decade-long rule, showed his own irritation on December 3rd at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai. “If there’s one thing South America doesn’t need right now it is conflict,” he said. “We need to grow and to improve the lives of our people.”
Before the referendum took place Vladímir Padrino López, the Venezuelan defence minister, issued a threat against Guyana disguised as reassurance. The border dispute “is not a war, for now”, he said. Nevertheless, Venezuela is unlikely to invade its neighbour. It “has a massive military advantage over Guyana, but Venezuela would not be confronting only Guyana”, says Rocío San Miguel, a military analyst. The United States and Brazil would swiftly come to the small nation’s defence with military help, she thinks.
Mr Maduro, who had no doubt convinced himself that the referendum was a brilliant idea, has in fact confirmed his unpopularity, irritated his sympathisers in the region and provided himself with a spurious mandate to annex part of a neighbouring country which, if acted upon, would be military suicide. Could this threat of a phoney war against Guyana be his Waterloo? Might those close to him decide he is a liability? Maybe. But he does have an uncanny ability to keep coming back.■
