A Narrow Presidential Win in Venezuela
Video Transcript:
Video Transcript:
As expected, Venezuelan interim President Nicolas Maduro won the presidency April 14. However, the difference between Maduro and his competitor, Henrique Capriles, was surprisingly narrow. While Capriles had been creeping up in the polls in the weeks ahead of the election, Maduro was the designated successor to deceased President Hugo Chavez, who won re-election handily as recently as October by a margin of more than 10 percentage points. In the final analysis, the closeness of the race points to growing trouble for Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
The challenge going forward will be for Maduro to establish himself as a credible post-Chavez leader while managing a fractious inner circle and addressing significant economic challenges. While the inner circle of Venezuela’s chavista leadership team has appeared united in the wake of Chavez’s death, there exist significant political rivalries that Maduro will have to manage.
Chief among the challenges facing Maduro is the question of whether or not to deepen the country’s socialist policies, or to adopt changes that would make it easier to attract foreign investment. The country’s oil industry has been in decline for years, and the national oil company does not have the resources to substantially increase oil output in the short term. But without those improvements, the country is suffering a cash flow problem that has made foreign exchange scarce and has exacerbated food shortages.
The close election results this weekend may mean that Maduro will have less room to maneuver publicly. Capriles gained about 700,000 more votes than he attracted in October running against Chavez. And the fact is that while Venezuelans heavily supported Chavez himself, there is growing dissatisfaction with the policies he championed.
What happens next will be determined by how much of a stand Capriles decides to take in opposition to the election results. If Capriles refuses to accept the results of a recount, then Venezuela could be in for a long, drawn out public battle with the potential for significant street unrest. But even if the opposition accepts the results and resigns itself to six years of chavista rule, Maduro will have a rocky road ahead of him, not only in navigating the Venezuelan political and economic situation, but also in balancing competing interests within the fractious leadership team built by his predecessor.
