Housing, public space and dictatorship in Venezuela
Résumé
Statues of Chavez toppled, 'cacerolazos' and demonstraCons: this summer, the streets of Venezuela rose up in protest against the contested re-elecCon of Nicolas Maduro. Public space has become the last basCon of democraCc expression in a country where Chavist power has succeeded in controlling the private sphere through ideological clientelism.
Caracas, Sunday 28 July 2024 at midnight, the banging of pots and pans resounded throughout the Venezuelan capital aPer the solemn announcement by the CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral) proclaiming Nicolas Maduro, leader of the country since 2013, winner of the elecCons (52%) ahead of Edmundo Gonzalez UrruCa 1 , the main candidate of the opposiCon party, Mesa Unidad DemocraCca (MUD). "The result is irreversible" proclaimed Elvis Amoroso, President of the CNE, while at the same Cme explaining that a "server cybera_ack" had delayed the verificaCon and, as such, the announcement of the results. No jusCficaCon or official proof was issued: these few words alone represented the formal announcement of a new six-year term for the current president. While a sumptuous firework display was held in the town centre of Caracas, the sound of kitchen pots being hammered in protest conCnued to spread from tower block to favela, from the working class to the poshest districts of the town, marking a divide in the country, a dissociaCon of the inhabitants from the ruling power. In certain neighbourhoods, the populaCon had begun to mobilise the day before, spending the night in front of the polling staCons to make sure they could cast their ballots as soon as they opened, rightly or wrongly expecCng early closure of the polling staCons or violence by the civil guerilla forces armed by the state to "maintain order" in the town's pauperised districts. While the country had already had two supposedly rigged elecCons, the presidenCal elecCons of 2013 and 2018, there was no reason to suspect that the cheaCng claimed at the Cme by the opposiCon party (MUD) would be confirmed once more. During these last elecCons of 2024, the scenario seemed to be different. The unofficial esCmates circulaCng at the Cme on social media showed the opposiCon as clear favourites. The MUD had managed to kindle a hope of change with an unprecedented mobilisaCon (nearly 70% of voters), even though 4 of the 7 million Venezuelans who had leP the country to escape the regime in power were prevented from voCng. Furthermore, the opposiCon party had anCcipated and organised the presence of observers in two thirds of the country's polling staCons to collect and share the results, ballot staCon by ballot staCon, on a plagorm accessible to all 2 . On the date of the vote, nobody had dared to suppose that any further usurping of the result could be possible faced with the huge gap (nearly 20 points) separaCng the two sides. In the end, since Nicolas Maduro's accession to power, the suspicion of electoral fraud keeps coming back like a chorus. As if the current president of the Bolivarian government had never succeeded in convincing people of the legiCmacy of his heritage, of this posiCon as head of state following the transfer of power to him by Hugo Chavez before he died of cancer.
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