Maduro has smashed previous election hopes. Why Venezuelans in Florida are now optimistic

They have had their hopes smashed before.

Venezuelan exiles living across Florida have voted for change in their homeland in past elections — only to see the regime in Caracas, tightly controlled by socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, inexplicably come out on top. The Venezuelan electoral system simply can’t be trusted, most of them concluded.

And yet, thousands of Venezuelans in Florida find themselves believing this time there may yet be an electoral solution to their country’s political crisis. It is not that they believe that Maduro has had a change of heart and has suddenly turned into a democrat, but rather that the circumstances surrounding him have changed to the point that if he attempts to cheat this time he won’t be able to get away with it.

As Venezeula heads toward a presidential election on July 28, there are two key factors that make this time different, said William Díaz, founder and president of Casa de Venezuela in Orlando, a non-profit group that provide supports to newly arrived Venezuelans in the U.S.

“The first one is that in the past, we have won the election by a nose,” Diaz said, adding that the photo-finish results were so close that it required only a little tweaking by the regime-controlled National Electorate Council to steal the vote. But in this upcoming election, he added, the leading opposition candidate has such a big lead over Maduro in recent polls that manipulating the numbers does not appear to be a credible option, leaving the government only with radical measures, such as finding an excuse to cancel the election altogether.

The second point is that there is a greater urgency for change, he said. Conditions in the South American country have deteriorated to the point that according to recent polls another four million Venezuelans could be provoked by a Maduro victory to leave their country in search of a better future, following the steps of the eight million that have already done so.

“Our family members in Venezuela are telling us that they can no longer withstand the situation, not for another year”, Díaz said.

A poll published in April by local firm Meganálisis showed that 40% of Venezuelans in the country would consider leaving if Maduro is declared the winner in July. Other polls suggest that would not happen if the country holds a free and fair election. A survey last weekend by polling firm Datin Corp has opposition candidate Edmundo González Urrutia currently holding a 40-point lead over Maduro, a margin of 62% over 20%.

While most Venezuelans living in the United States have taken for granted that Maduro would not be willing to concede defeat in a presidential election, it has been the meteoric rise in the polls of the 74-year old former diplomat that is getting Venezuelans abroad excited.

Gonzalez was a virtual unknown in Venezuela three weeks ago. But then Venezuela’s opposition groups united behind him and began to push his candidacy as their best hope to unseat Maduro.

Now, Gonzalez enjoys a commanding lead that analysts in Venezuela believe will be very hard to erase through election fraud.

And his 62% approval rating is expected to continue climbing as more people in Venezuela become familiar with his name, analysts say.

That lead excludes the millions of Venezuelans who have left the country, most of whom will not be able to vote on July 28th. More than 380,000 of them currently live in Florida, the bulk of whom arrived in the Sunshine State in the past 10 seeking to escape political persecution and economic devastation in their homeland.

While settling down in South Florida communities such as Doral, Weston and Fontainebleau in an attempt to reconstruct their lives, most Venezuelans in Florida said they are watching events in the South American country closely, following the meteoric rise of González in the polls.

Because there are no current diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Venezuela, there are no consular centers in the United States where the estimated 812,000 Venezuelans living here could go vote, as they have in the past. In fact, Miami was once upon a time the largest voting station outside Venezuela, and in previous elections more than 20,000 Venezuelans were registered to vote in the Miami consulate.

Relations between the two countries, however, collapsed soon after Maduro took power in 2013 and the South American nation currently has no diplomatic representation in the United States. While more than 8 million Venezuelans are believed to be living in other countries, only a few thousands of them are registered to vote this time around in a handful of Latin American nations. (Venezuelans abroad who are not already registered to vote in a consulate outside Venezuela can’t vote in the July election.)

But a number of Venezuelans have been moved by the growing optimism surrounding the opposition’s chances this time and are considering traveling to the South American country to vote on election day.

“We are seeing a very interesting phenomenon,” said Orlando Viera-Blanco, president of grassroots organization VenAmerica, which is based in Miami and advocates on behalf of Venezuelan immigrants. “The renewed hopes of seeing a democratic transition is prompting diaspora members, who are being kept from voting [in the U.S] to search for ways to participate somehow... planning to travel to Venezuela so they can vote themselves”.

Traveling to Venezuela to vote for the opposition, however, could be a risky move for Venezuelans, given that regime officials in the past have arrested people willing to express their discontent on trumped-up charges in an attempt to make an example of them. To vote in Venezuela also requires for the voter to be already registered to vote there.

Yet some believe it is worth the risk. “Of course it is,” Maria Mercedes García, a Venezuelan exile who lives in Miami. “God willing, I’ll be traveling to Venezuela so I can vote.”

While admitting it will be an expensive undertaking, Garcia said it’s worth the cost. “I have always voted and I have always believed in the vote.”

Organizations such as VenAmerica and Casa de Venezuela, among others, have been holding meetings to discuss how they can help their countrymen from the United States. A key meeting will be held May 16 at the U.S,. Capitol building in Washingtion, with representatives from local Casa de Venezuela centers established in 19 other states traveling to meet with U.S. lawmakers who have been following the Venezuelan crisis closely, Diaz said.

Other meetings between U.S. State Department officials and representatives of Venezuelans in the United States have been held in Florida during the past few days.

In October, after a series of month-long negotiations with the Biden administration, Maduro had agreed to hold a presidential election in an accord signed with the Venezuelan opposition. Getting important concessions from the U.S., which partially lifted its oil sanctions on the South American country, the regime had agreed to reform the often criticized electoral system and to allow any opposition leader to compete.

But Maduro reneged on the deal soon after it became evident that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado would soundly beat him in the election. Maduro proceeded to ban her candidacy, and when she named a proxy, university professor Corina Yoris, to run in her place, he blocked her as well.

The Venezuelan strongman had hoped to have conditions in place for an election victory, despite his abysmal lack of popularity, by running against 12 little known, or other wise little-liked, contenders, who would split up the opposition vote among them.

The plan had seemed likely to succeed until Machado and the main opposition parties suddenly decided to unite and back González.

The U.S. has reimposed its sanctions on the regime since then.