Here’s why a 40-point lead is no guarantee of a win for opposition in Venezuela election

In almost any other country, Nicolas Maduro’s electoral chances would be considered hopeless.

With less than two weeks to go until the presidential election, the Venezuelan ruler must overcome his rival’s 40-point-plus lead in the polls to remain in power — at a time he’s so unpopular he has a hard time getting his own supporters to attend his rallies.

But Venezuela’s pivotal elections are not being held under normal democratic conditions, and the regime’s well-stocked arsenal of manipulation and intimidation tools have traditionally been so effective in chipping away at rivals’ leads that experts believe the outcome of the July 28 vote is still an open question.

“You very seldom see an election where the gap between candidates surpasses the 20-point mark that is still seen as uncertain. Here the opposition began with a 25-point lead and we are currently above the 40-point mark,” said Oswaldo Ramírez, president of polling firm ORC Consultores, which currently has opposition candidate Edmundo González beating Maduro 60% to 13%.

ORC Consultores is only one of a number of respected Venezuelan polling firms depicting what at first glance looks like a lead too large for Maduro to overcome. Polling firm Meganálisis has González winning by 60 points, 72% to 12%, while other firms have the opposition candidate surpassing the 50% mark while the socialist leader stays below 15%.

And yet, Maduro could still declare himself the winner on July 28.

Why?

“Because in Venezuela we are accustomed to seeing the regime using a series of tools to disrupt the will of society and stay in power at all costs,” Ramirez said.

The list of tools is long and the regime has been implementing them for months. They vary from outright banning key opposition leaders from running, to the state’s control of most news outlets to the arrest of political opponents.

The regime has also been creating the conditions for what opposition leaders are calling “an election fraud in slow motion” by drastically limiting or banning international observers, restricting access to polls in key opposition areas and blocking the participation of the 20% of the population that has left the country, most of whom would likely vote for the opposition.

As the July 28 date draws near, opposition leaders have composed a list of potential fraud strategies and ruses that could be implemented by the regime to disrupt the vote.

These include the establishment of a large number of voting stations with just one table in areas that largely favor the opposition, with the aim of generating confusion and creating long lines to discourage voters.

Alberto Ray, director of the Florida think-thank Risk Awareness Council, said that members of the regime-controlled National Electorate Council, which runs elections, are also likely to slow down operations at each polling station with the same aim.

In a further attempt to boost Maduro’s chances, his name and passport-style photo appear an eye-catching 13 times on the ballot, overshadowing the rest of his nine opponents, who appear three or four times at most. That’s because candidates are allowed to appear on the ballot with their names next to each political group that supports them. Maduro is representing 13 different political parties, which gives his supporters 13 different options to choose from, though they can only vote for him once.

Efforts by the opposition have so far centered om trying to build an army of volunteers to serve as observers at each poll to try to safeguard the vote.

Supervision at each poll is key in order for the opposition to fight off attempts by regime representatives to commit fraud during the counting of the votes, Ray said.

Given that widespread fraud is still likely despite these efforts, a high participation of opposition voters is also key to ensure that Gonzalez still comes on top at the end of the election day, he added.

“Right now, even the most extremely conservative polls give Edmundo a 20-point lead. So if there are 11 million votes, that means that Maduro has to overcome a 2.2 million deficit. And despite the ruses the regime is preparing for election day, it will be very hard to steal that number of votes if you have adequate supervision at the tables,” Ray said.

It will also be important for Gonzalez supporters to remain at the voting stations after they close to prevent opposition observers from being intimidated by regime officials during the counting of the vote, he said.

While Gonzalez and his mentor, opposition chief María Corina Machado, have been campaigning under a promise of change and hope for a better future. Maduro appears to be running a campaign based on intimidation, aiming to scare voters into believing that they will lose access to government services and subsidies if they vote against him.

The regime has also redoubled efforts to disrupt his rival’s campaign by arresting opposition organizers. This week saw the number of arrests climb to 102, with the detention of Machado’s security chief, Milciades Ávila. But the arbitrary incarcerations have also included low-level volunteers, including truck drivers and sympathizers carrying food for campaign workers.

While those arrests increase the element of fear among voters, their impact on public perception is not being detected at the polls. Gonzalez’s continued climb is making some analysts wonder if the regime is getting ready to resort to a last minute ban of his candidacy.

Such a scenario would probably constitute a severe blow to the opposition, which would then have to choose among the little known or little liked independent candidates who are also registered to run to see which one they would rally behind with less than two weeks before the vote.

But a last-minute ban on González’s candidacy would also do away with any hope the regime might have of obtaining legitimacy through an election, analysts say, arguing that it would arguably defeat Maduro’s purpose for calling the election in the first place.

Jesús Seguías, president of polling firm Datincorp, said that in the end it all boils down to whether Maduro is actually ready to step down from the presidency and allow Venezuela to begin a democratic transition.

“That is the real question,” Seguías said, arguing that the real other option for Maduro would be to keep cementing Venezuela’s ties with the dictatorial regimes – Russia, Iran, Cuba, China – that oppose the United States.

Regardless of the large bag of tricks prepared by the government for election day, the regime is fighting this time against an overwhelming desire for change at a level that simply was not present in previous elections, Ramirez, from ORC Consultores, said.

“The regime might be reaching a point where all these intimidating tactics and all of these plans of ‘continuous fraud’ could simply not be enough to counteract the desire to vote,” Ramirez said. “Because we are not just talking here about the opposition, but of all the people. Because it is the Venezuelan people, as a whole, who are screaming in favor of change in order to build a new country.”