Evgeniy Bai
Local elections were held in Venezuela last November. In 19 of the 24 states of the country, the ruling United Socialist Party, relying on a gigantic administrative resource, won a victory.
Until the end of last year, the only state where the votes were not counted was the state of Barinas. There the victory was won by the representative of the opposition Freddie Superlano - he bypassed the incumbent governor Arhenis Chavez, brother of the deceased Hugo Chavez by one percent of the vote.
Maduro decided that it was impossible to recognize the victory of the opposition in this state. Not only that the idol of the nation was born and spent his childhood there. Barinas, since 1998, when the passionate Hugo won the presidential elections, was ruled by representatives of his family — first by the father of President Hugo de los Reyes, and then by the sons of the latter, Adan (now he is Venezuela's ambassador to Cuba) and Arhenis.
Opposition leader Superlano was disqualified under a contrived pretext by the National Electoral Council, which is completely under Maduro's control, and re-elections were announced in the state. However, in order to avoid further humiliation, Arhenis Chávez withdrew his candidacy and the government decided to stake on Jorge Areas, the son-in-law of Hugo Chavez and the former foreign minister of the country.
In Caracas, they were confident that the heavyweight Areas, a well-known politician in the country, would easily achieve victory. But to strengthen his position, the authorities began selling refrigerators, pressure cookers and cement to the population of Barinas at doping prices, which they had never done in the last 22 years.
All the more unexpected was the victory of another oppositionist, Sergio Garrido, in the by-elections. And he defeated the former foreign minister by a margin of not one, but 14 percent, gaining 55.4 percent versus 41.3 percent for Areasa.
In this situation, Maduro no longer dared to protest the victory of the oppositionist, especially since Areasa, without waiting for the final counting of votes, admitted his defeat.
"Wonderful Barinas, it must end where it began," tweeted Juan Guaido, who has been recognized by the United States and several other countries as the legitimate president of Venezuela.
Another prominent opposition figure, Enrique Capriles, who has twice participated in presidential campaigns, said that the victory in Barinas could be a trigger for future big changes in the country, but they can be achieved only with the unity of all opposition forces, which until now could not agree among themselves.
The opposition's victory could be the starting point for uniting opponents of the Maduro regime to win the presidential elections in 2024. The results of the activities of the current leader, who came to power in 2013 after the death of Chavez, are very depressing: poverty reigns in the country, the shortage has spread to absolutely all food products, as well as to gasoline. In 9 years, 6 million Venezuelans — a fifth of the population — fled the country.
One of the musicians of Barinas composed a song entitled "The Vicious Legacy of Chavez". In it, he asks the whole of Venezuela for forgiveness for the fact that "this state, where Comandante Chavez was born, brought such disasters to the whole country."