The Power of the powerless.
On four occasions in 2012, in 2015, in 2018, and now in 2024, this blog has offered reflections on elections in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, and later Nicolas Maduro. Each time the question that the vote on election day would decide who would remain in power was discarded. What mattered was not the vote on election day, but what the opposition would do afterwards to hold the dictatorship accountable for stealing the election, and use the moment to mobilize the populace, and non-violently challenge the regime.
In 2015, this blog concluded with a quote by Maria Corina Machado that proved prophetic in 2024. The Venezuelan opposition leader over twitter on December 5, 2015 explained the stakes in this election: "Win by a landslide or a monumental fraud will be done that we will not accept."
#6D: Arrasamos o se hará un fraude monumental que no aceptaremos https://t.co/475yN11Lml
— María Corina Machado (@MariaCorinaYA) December 5, 2015
It is true that "free and fair elections are not possible in totalitarian police states such as Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua." Gene Sharp, the late strategic nonviolence scholar, explained why in his 1993 work, FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY: A conceptual framework for liberation, published on the website of the Cuban NGO Brothers to the Rescue.
"Elections are not available under dictatorships as an instrument of significant political change. Some dictatorial regimes, such as those of the former Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc, went through the motions in order to appear democratic. Those elections, however, were merely rigidly controlled plebiscites to get public endorsement of candidates already hand picked by the dictators. Dictators under pressure may at times agree to new elections, but then rig them to place civilian puppets in government offices. If opposition candidates have been allowed to run and were actually elected, as occurred in Burma in 1990 and Nigeria in 1993, results may simply be ignored and the "victors" subjected to intimidation, arrest, or even execution. Dictators are not in the business of allowing elections that could remove them from their thrones."
Elections are not an instrument of political change, but they can be used as a tool of political mobilization in a nonviolent struggle, and this is what I believe is taking place in Venezuela today. Sharp offers a hard truth, but one that reveals that the power to change resides, not in foreign powers, but in the people themselves. An important excerpt is reproduced below.
Facing the hard truth
The conclusion is a hard one. When one wants to bring down a dictatorship most effectively and with the least cost then one has four immediate tasks:
- One must strengthen the oppressed population themselves in their determination, self-confidence, and resistance skills;
- One must strengthen the independent social groups and institutions of the oppressed people;
- One must create a powerful internal resistance force; and
- One must develop a wise grand strategic plan for liberation and implement it skillfully.
A liberation struggle is a time for self-reliance and internal strengthening of the struggle group. As Charles Stewart Parnell called out during the Irish rent strike campaign in 1879 and 1880:
It is no use relying on the Government . . . . You must only rely upon your own determination . . . . [H]elp yourselves by standing together . . . strengthen those amongst yourselves who are weak . . . , band yourselves together, organize yourselves . . . and you must win . . . .
When you have made this question ripe for settlement, then and not till then will it be settled.(4)
Against a strong self-reliant force, given wise strategy, disciplined and courageous action, and genuine strength, the dictatorship will eventually crumble. Minimally, however, the above four requirements must be fulfilled.
As the above discussion indicates, liberation from dictatorships ultimately depends on the people's ability to liberate themselves.
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