Neighborhood named after Nicolás Maduro will vote for the opposition

In the Nicolás Maduro neighborhood, residents will vote for the opposition in the Venezuelan elections on July 28. Founded 17 years ago on an invaded piece of land in the state of Barinas, land of the late socialist leader Hugo Chávez, its residents say they feel “abandoned.”

Barinas has already turned its back on Maduro, who is seeking a third term in office that would allow him to remain in power for 18 years. This former bastion of the ruling party, always governed by members of the Chávez family, passed to the opposition in 2022.

It is a feat that inspires many in the opposition, because of the parallels with this year’s presidential election. As now, the leading candidate at that time was disqualified and replaced by an unknown who had to face the gigantic state apparatus at the service of Chavismo.

“What happened in Barinas is the expression of a people tired of so many abuses and so many injustices“Governor Sergio Garrido, who took over the candidacy when Freddy Superlano was disqualified just after winning the election in 2021, told AFP.

That is the role that Edmundo González Urrutia will play on July 28 when he faces Maduro instead of María Corina Machado, the winner of the opposition primary and favorite in the polls, but banned from holding public office for 15 years.

Gabriel Martinez says that 17 years ago more than 200 families invaded part of a farm that today became the Nicolás Maduro neighborhoodnamed thus when the current president was still Chávez’s foreign minister.

The streets are not paved, there is no potable water or domestic gas network, the electricity service comes through an illegal connection that almost always fails and the refrigerators are empty.Its inhabitants live in extreme poverty and talk about change.

“People gave it that name hoping that they would be taken into account, that the place would be improved, that electricity, roads, water would be installed… and that was not the case,” recalls Martínez, 31, standing at the door of his block house with a zinc roof. “And because of this sector, there are many in Barinas: abandoned, submerged in poverty.”

The imprint of Chavismo is plastered on hundreds of billboards across the state of 800,000 people. One billboard shows Maduro on horseback, while murals of Chavez as a child, a teenager and in his olive-green military uniform kissing a flag cover public walls.

“Cradle of the Revolution” is written at the entrance to Sabaneta, where former President Chavez was born in 1954. On July 28, the day of the presidential election, he would have turned 70 and his followers insist on dedicating the election to him. There is a statue and a museum in honor of the commander.

Maduro recently visited Sabaneta. He ordered the streets to be paved and the ruined hospital to be remodeled.

“Here there are sick people everywhere, and there is no money,” complains María Canelón, an 85-year-old peasant woman, diabetic, hypertensive and suffering from arthritis, who depends on remittances she receives from abroad from two of her children.

Sergio Garrido won a special election ordered by the Supreme Court in January 2022 after annulling Superlano’s victory over Argenis Chávez, the former president’s brother and in power since 2017. Before him, his brother Adán (2008-2017) and his father Hugo de los Reyes (1999-2008) governed: 22 years of Chávez family hegemony.

“Barinas voted for a supposed change in the 2021 elections,” Maduro claimed on July 10 at a rally in that city. “Did they win by electing a governor from the old political class?” he asked.

That defeat was a direct blow to Maduro, who had imposed the candidate: former vice president Jorge Arreaza, who obtained 41.3% of the votes compared to 55.3% for Garrido.

“It was very hard, very tough,” recalls the 56-year-old governor, who says he worked with the bare minimum. “We managed to win despite the circumstances, despite not having the resources to campaign against an all-powerful government that had everything in its hands.”

Four days before Maduro, Machado and González Urrutia were in Barinas. They gathered thousands of people, including Gabriel Martínez. “I hadn’t seen so many people for a long time,” he says.