‘Proud to be a revolutionary’

Valencia, Venezuela – In the Venezuelan town of Los Guayos, Elsa Rojas sits proudly under a blue tent erected in a corner of the main square.

A large poster hangs down from one corner of the awning. Another is draped over the white plastic table in front of her.

Both bear the same moustachioed face: that of President Nicolas Maduro, styled in the colours of the Venezuelan flag.

Rojas meticulously reviews a list attached to her clipboard. All morning, she has asked passersby to pledge to vote for Maduro as he seeks a third term in Sunday’s presidential elections.

“I feel proud to be a revolutionary,” she said, echoing the rhetoric of the Bolivarian Revolution, the socialist movement that Maduro has championed. “Maduro has given us so much.”

But the 46-year-old mother of three, who works in local government, admits that rallying support for Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has been more challenging than in the past.

She is herself part of a dwindling base of support. As Sunday’s election approaches, Maduro has seen his grip on power weaken, as the opposition surges in the polls.

Even once-loyal supporters have turned their backs on Maduro, openly embracing rival candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a retired diplomat.

One recent survey from the data firm Delphos and Andres Bello Catholic University found that more than 59 percent of voters polled supported Gonzalez, compared with 26.7 percent for Maduro.

But Maduro and his allies are hoping that economic incentives — and the spectre of foreign influence in Venezuela’s politics — will help draw voters to their side, though critics warn the incumbent is not above using repression to ensure his victory.

A former bus driver in the capital city of Caracas, Maduro was a longtime supporter of the late Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s hugely popular socialist president.

The political movement Chavez forged even bears his name: Chavismo. Its acolytes are called “chavistas”.

In Chavez’s government, Maduro worked his way up from being foreign minister to vice president. As Chavez succumbed to cancer in 2013, the ailing president tapped Maduro as the successor to his political movement.

But since taking power, Maduro has presided over an economic free fall as prices for oil — Venezuela’s main export — plummeted.

The economy shrank almost 80 percent between 2014 and 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Spiralling inflation, meanwhile, helped spur a humanitarian crisis that led to shortages of food and medicine.

An estimated 7.7 million people have since left the country — nearly a quarter of the population.

On top of the economic woes, Maduro has also struggled to muster the popularity of his predecessor. In the 2013 special election, he barely eked out a victory over an opposition candidate that Chavez had trounced just one year earlier.

Maduro’s re-election in 2018, by contrast, was marked by record-low voter turnout and allegations of election fraud in his favour.

Phil Gunson — a senior analyst with the Crisis Group, a nonprofit dedicated to conflict resolution — noted that Maduro has leaned heavily on his association with Chavez in his current campaign.

“The government had been downplaying the socialism aspect during Maduro’s campaigns: the colour red, the references to Chavez and the revolution,” he said.

“But I think it quickly became apparent to them that Maduro was so unpopular that they really had to bring Chavez back centre stage.”

Maduro has managed to cling to some unwavering supporters, who see him as instrumental in carrying forward Venezuela’s socialist revolution.

Rojas counts herself among them: Her confidence in Sunday’s outcome is ironclad.

“I know we are going to win and that we are going to celebrate. I have no doubt,” she said jubilantly.

In the lead-up to Sunday’s vote, Maduro’s camp has attempted to reach out to voters by playing up its efforts to combat inflation and address poverty.

Since 2016, hyperinflation has eroded the value of the national currency, the bolivar. In response, some residents have shifted to using the United States dollar for their transactions.

However, this informal dollarisation of the economy has reduced the purchasing power of those not paid in the foreign currency, like pensioners and government workers.

In an attempt to address the economic instability, Maduro launched one of his signature programmes in 2016: the Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP), a food distribution network.

Also in 2016, the government unveiled a “bonus scheme” where different segments of the population would sporadically receive financial top-ups.

Luis Bermudez Romero, 90, has been among the recipients. A retired university professor living in Valencia, Venezuela’s third-biggest city, Bermudez credits Maduro with mitigating the economic crisis.

“Nicolas has been a positive surprise for us. He is the person that has foreseen every problem and come up with a solution,” said Bermudez.

Sitting in his living room, surrounded by photos of his children and grandchildren, Bermudez described himself as a faithful advocate of Chavismo, which promotes anti-imperialism, social justice and wealth redistribution.

Like other pensioners in the country, he receives the equivalent of $3.50 a month for his pension, the same as a public sector minimum wage — and about enough for a large carton of milk.

In explaining Venezuela’s economic crisis, Bermudez echoed a theme that Maduro has leaned on during his campaign: the threat of US interference in the country’s domestic affairs.

“The North American empire has left us high and dry. It has left the government with nothing. But Maduro has made a great effort to help us with these bonuses,” Bermudez said.

Maduro himself has slammed the US for slapping sanctions on Venezuela over accusations of corruption and human rights abuses. He also blames the opposition for encouraging economic penalties against his government.

“The gringos think they can threaten Venezuela. They cannot threaten Venezuela,” Maduro said, using a slang term for foreigners on state TV in April.

Since 2005, the US has placed sanctions on “individuals and entities” in Venezuela for “criminal, antidemocratic or corrupt actions”.

But in 2017, under then-President Donald Trump, the US imposed broad financial sanctions against the government in response to alleged democratic backsliding.

That proved to be fuel for Maduro’s accusations of outside meddling in the country’s economy. He blames the sanctions for making everyday Venezuelans poorer.

His government regularly announces “bonuses” for different sectors of the population, including an “economic war bonus” for pensioners — its name a reference to the US-led sanctions. It awarded pensioners an additional $45 this month.

Gunson, the analyst for the Crisis Group, has lived in Caracas for 25 years. He believes Maduro’s rhetoric about the sanctions could pay electoral dividends.

“It’s a powerful message. It resonates with a lot of people,” Gunson said. “It has a grain of truth to it, but it’s not the whole story by any means.”

A July campaign leaflet entitled “Maduro’s Achievements” also listed the solutions the president and his allies said they used to blunt the sanctions, including maintaining peace and conquering hyperinflation.

“They did conquer hyperinflation,” Gunson explained. “But they also caused it. They basically shrank the economy, eliminated credit and forced people to live on starvation wages.”

Eager to mask the blights on his years in power, Maduro has adopted new campaign strategies to woo voters.

He joined the video platform TikTok in 2020 and has since amassed more than 2.2 million followers. On Instagram Live broadcasts, he shows off his rallies, where he has sung, danced and prayed with his supporters.

Scrolling through videos on his phone, mototaxi driver Alfred Rajoy speaks animatedly about how he attended one of the recent rallies.

He told Al Jazeera he was proud to be one of the motorcyclists who got close to the president.

Rajoy’s windbreaker jacket testifies to his devotion to the Chavismo movement: The faces of Maduro and Chavez are printed on the front, one on either side of the zipper.

But he acknowledges that Maduro’s government has faced criticism over corruption and its human rights record.

“It’s no secret that we have had failures here, extreme failures. There is some discontent in our communities, throughout the country. Some people close to Nicolas Maduro have done wrong,” Rajoy said.

He also expressed a degree of discomfort with government actions designed to dismantle and discourage the opposition. Dozens of opposition members have been detained in the lead-up to Sunday’s race, and restaurants and hotels that hosted Gonzalez, the rival presidential candidate, have been shut down.

But some supporters dismiss such stories as misinformation — or, worse, fabrications from the opposition and foreign agents.

Guillermo Avila, 24, a Maduro supporter, said he believes many of the criticisms he sees online are the product of opposition manipulation.

“They portray our government as a totalitarian and dictatorial one, but actually, it is a participatory and crucial government,” Avila said. “It offers a space for everyone. We are seeing the country growing economically, where people look happy in the streets.”

But for Gunson, Maduro’s “man of the people” narrative doesn’t hold up against his track record of alleged abuses.

“Maduro styles himself the worker, because he didn't go to university and he was a bus driver,” Gunson said. “But this is a government that jails trade union leaders for protesting. These are people who have grown rich exploiting the poor, and they claim to be socialists. Contradiction is in their middle name.”

As a result of Maduro’s reputation for tamping down dissent, many opposition voters are concerned the president and his supporters won't respect a Gonzalez win.

From his living room armchair, Bermudez watches Maduro’s campaigns on his small television set. For him, Maduro losing is inconceivable. The prospect even brought tears to his eyes: “The loss of the election would be the loss of the country, the destruction of Venezuela.”

Other Maduro supporters, however, are less fatalistic about the possibility of an end to nearly 25 years of socialist rule.

“This is a democracy,” said Rajoy. “The most important thing is that people vote — and that the result is respected.”

Both men are eagerly awaiting the results on election day, which, not coincidentally, falls on the late Chavez’s birthday.