U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Keith Mines, director of the Latin America program at the United States Institute of Peace. Welcome back, Keith. How are you?

Keith Mines: Great. It's good to be here, Laura. Thanks.

Laura Coates: Glad that you are here. Well, we're all thinking about the presidential election right here in the United States. We are looking, what 92 days from now and earlier for early voting. And yet people are still trying to understand what's happened in Venezuela. And it seems to go back to square one bring us up to speed. There was an election, there was a contested decision in terms of who really won. Both are claiming. Walk us through the background here.

Keith Mines: Sure thing. Thanks. So, Venezuelans went to the polls last Sunday to elect a president. The contest was between the current President, Nicolas Maduro from the ruling party and opposition candidate, Edmundo González, who's a former diplomat that was thrust into the position when the leading candidate Maria Corina Machado, and her 41st choice of substitutes were not allowed to run. So, the election was largely peaceful the day of the election, there was only a handful of international observers there, but large numbers of domestic observers covering pretty much every polling place. Venezuelans are really into voting. This is one thing that's noteworthy, they want desperately to have a peaceful outcome to their crisis. They've always been big believers in elections as the way to achieve that. And they've also through the decades invested heavily in good election machinery. So, on the technical side, they actually have the right stuff to hold a valid election.

So, the surveys leading up to the election showed a pretty convincing lead for González. But the regime was surprisingly calm, we were all kind of surprised by that. I think we can now assume that was because they knew that at the end of the voting, they would just overturn the results and declare victory, which is exactly what they did. They wasted no time in declaring Maduro the victor, in the evening of the election, they held a brief ceremony to crown him the winner and 52 to 43%. And then the next day, there was a much more elaborate ceremony that affirmed all that. The opposition knew it was a fraud. And they called for the release of the polling data for each station, which is what would normally be done the actes as they're called in Spanish. But meanwhile, the opposition did something very clever and they began to accumulate the actes themselves. They had people in every polling station, and by weeks end they had about 85% of the polling station data online, and they've got a website where you can actually go and see this on a map, district by district. And their figures showed with some precision, that a total of 10,700,000 votes, Gonzales had won over 7 million. So that's 68% at 30%. So, all of that is great for the record, but the regime's not budging from its position that it won the election. The one positive thing in all this is that the inauguration is not until January. So, there's still some time for other scenarios to play out. And there's been regional players involved Brazil and also Colombia. They've insisted also that the regime released the verifiable election data, the actes again, and Brazil insisted that the decision be reviewed by the Supreme Court, which is regime control, but not something that will yield much but it does by some time.

Laura Coates: So here we are at the present time and there is of course, the United States is watching this, and it actually has an impact on the way in which different parties are campaigning knowing the not only demographics involved in those who are seeking to enter the United States as an insecure citizenship, but also the conversations around the security of elections. What can you tell us right now, in terms of how this will all, is playing out in real time now?

Keith Mines: Yeah, that's a good question. So, the other thing that's in play right now is the people have been in the streets in large numbers demonstrating. In terms of leverage, the United States has been sanctioning Venezuela and we've made bold statements and everything else. But the one thing that really seems to be the vehicle for change is demonstrations, and there was tremendous hope for this election. They ran on the banner, the opposition ran on the banner of change that it would lead to family reunification, and there's a dynamic with the security forces. So, the security forces have been called out in large numbers to put down these demonstrations. They've arrested 2,000 people, 16 have been killed in the streets. So, there's a real tension right now. And they're really the regime is calling for peace, but they want peace with them, of course still in power. So, the security forces are still out there, they're trying to put down these demonstrations. And there's a question of whether or not the opposition can sustain these large, peaceful demonstrations. And if they get to a certain point where the, the actual military and there's kind of a difference between the military and the other minor security forces, but they're used for demonstrations, but if the military has to do something like fire on demonstrators, that is really where things start to shift in a hurry. And you can see that there's a kind of a fear, by the regime about that right now.

Laura Coates: This is leading I mean, when you talk about free and fair elections, I mean, in real time, you're seeing the consequences of people feeling as though their elections are not without integrity. And I understand that the opposition leader has had to go into hiding.

Keith Mines: Yeah, the opposition is in a really rough place right now. The again the regime is going after a lot of the opposition leaders, there are some options going forward. And I think that's the thing to remember, now, the United States has got a huge stake in this in how the outcome of this actually plays out. So, there's a couple of options that are already being put forward. They're all kind of difficult to imagine. But the cleanest option, of course, would be to negotiate to allow the real results of that election to stand. And that's what the opposition and most international actors to include the US wants.

The only way that works, and there's a proposal on the table for this from Venezuelan civil society, is that there's a coexistence pack that allows for key regime leaders to avoid the full weight of judgment for their crimes, that kind of impunity arrangement. And that would be probably also some kind of blended government, which is extreme, but not unreasonable given how much the two sides would need to share in governance anyway. Another one would be to rerun the election in December, some people are calling for that, since this election is disputed. Let's try just rerunning it. That could either be with the same two candidates or it could be with two different candidates. And it raises the issue of if the two new candidates were two individuals that were acceptable to both sides, it could open up the gate to something new. In any of these solutions, there needs to be a return to negotiations. And then the third would be to ignore the election altogether, and to negotiate some kind of shared governance. So, all of those are really difficult, but they're, you know, in the midst of this crisis, there are some new solutions that are starting to come forward. The important thing I think is not to fall into a place of acceptance of another six years of the status quo. It's a very long time for Venezuela to continue under a harsh sanctions regime, for the US and Venezuela to have lesser diplomatic relations than the US has even with Iran and Cuba. And for the Venezuelan people to live under an economy where the basic minimum wage is $4 a month and half the country is food insecure. So, the international community, especially the United States really needs to stay focused in support for democratic change in Venezuela.

Laura Coates: We'll see what influence the United States has over all this and we're watching very, very closely. So great to have you on this morning and keeping us informed. Keith Mines, director of the Latin American program at the United States Institute of Peace. Thank you for joining us.

Keith Mines: Thanks for having me. It's good to be here, Laura.