Standing in the Face of Illiberal Elections

There is a persistent puzzle about why elected autocrats hold on to the pretense of elections. When Nicolás Maduro put himself before the Venezuelan population in 2024, the result was a disaster for the regime, despite the repression of opponents and the heavy manipulation of state resources to favor the incumbent. The electoral count was stopped, the balloting information seized, and Maduro declared himself the overwhelming victor. No serious observer could take the ensuing claim to an electoral mandate seriously.

But our concern, and our sympathies, lie not with oppressive regimes seeking the protective cover of distorted elections, but with the democratic opposition.  Quite simply, what does the opposition stand to gain or lose by participating in an electoral charade in a system that is sliding from competitive authoritarianism into a closed dictatorship.  Our claim is that the decision is not so much a matter of principle but of politics.  For a beleaguered opposition, the question of participation should reflect both pragmatic and strategic considerations of the prospects for democratic resistance.

This year’s elections

Start with this year.  Venezuela held local and parliamentary elections on May 25^th. Unsurprisingly, Maduro’s allies won with an overwhelming majority. Even though Maduro had severely tilted the playing field in his favor, this time, and unlike in 2024, the regime did not have to alter the results from what was evident in the exit polls. This was partly because an important part of the opposition called for a boycott of the elections, and the regime did not face genuine competitors. The regime got more than 82% of the votes for the National Assembly, controlling 253 out of 285 seats. The regime still has a “taste for elections,” even if elections must be a sham.

But why continue with this façade?  What is the point of holding elections at all, especially as Venezuela is locking up opposition figures and completing the transition to pure autocracy? Why does the regime has some ongoing need to proclaim itself the choice of the people?

As regimes change, however, so does the role of the opposition.  Whereas elections may serve as a galvanizing moment in domestic politics under competitive regimes, they clearly do not play that role once the democratic façade is removed.   Not only does this change the function of elections but it also affects how the opposition perceives its role in future electoral processes. As we have argued in a recent essay, many reasons suggest that voting and participating in the electoral contest may be valuable even in closed authoritarian regimes. But as regimes change, so do oppositional strategies. If the opposition could show a credible political platform in the past and encourage citizens to vote in favor of an alternative to the Chávez/Maduro regime, today, putting themselves forward as possible future winners would be a mistake.

Venezuela is not a competitive authoritarian regime any longer

Elections are not always what they appear to be.  There is a difference between choosing among policy goals of competing political parties and simply crowning the next reigning caudillo. Latin America has a long history of presidents operating above the party system with claims of representational authority that focus more on the personal connection between the leaders and the voters. Venezuela reflects this pattern of personalist politics.  Chávez himself initially ran against the mainstream parties and won by a landslide. He quickly won a referendum on constitutional reform and the ensuing election for a new constituent assembly, using an electoral system he had designed to overrepresent his allies. His assembly enacted a new constitution and replaced the National Congress with a unicameral legislature. He also increased term limits and allowed presidents to run for a second term.

But the electoral honeymoon was short-lived.  In the 2002 and 2006 elections, Chávez barely hung on.  Then in 2007, Chávez lost an electoral gamble for a “blank” check removing term limits and other constraints on presidential rule, although he salvaged some of that in 2008.  In each instance, democratic resistance was emboldened.  And yet, the claim of electoral authority was critical for Chávez and provided a natural forum for the charismatic Chávez, a characteristic not shared by the dour Maduro.  After Chávez died in 2013, elections ran against Maduro, who quickly lost his parliamentary majority in the 2015 elections.  As became evident by the recourse to blatant fraud in 2024, Venezuela under Maduro could make no claim to electoral legitimacy.

Elections, whatever their risk, were important for the Chávez/Maduro enterprise on the way up, but perhaps no longer when the threat outweighed the gain.  In the inimitable words of Turkish leader Recep Erdogan, “You ride [democracy] until you get to your destination … and then you step off.”  Under this “streetcar” theory of democracy, what should the opposition do as it looks like the autocrats are reaching the end of the line?

Unsurprisingly, much of the opposition called for a boycott of the 2025 elections. By this point, the government had imprisoned many critics, and important opposition leaders, such as Edmundo González, the former candidate who challenged and defeated Maduro in 2024, were either exiled or hiding.  The Venezuelan opposition had proved prudent and pragmatic in the most difficult of circumstances.  No one would ever have confused being an opposition candidate under Chávez/Maduro with attending a garden party.  But, for all the improprieties and threats of previous elections, elections could hold a level of credibility because the opposition could work, make its message visible, sometimes win (as in the 2015 parliamentary elections), and political contestation, even if reduced, was still possible.

Before becoming a closed dictatorship, Venezuela fit in the widespread pattern of competitive authoritarian regimes—ones led by a civilian administration with formal electoral institutions and in which it was widely accepted that voting served as the ultimate source of authority, even though the incumbent regime abused state institutions to seize a relevant advantage. The opposition could continue to challenge as long as it did not pose an existential threat to the regime. A domesticated opposition served the regime’s interest in having enough electoral inclusivity to justify claims to a democratic mandate. For all such regimes, if elections appear too fake (as with 99 percent voting in North Korea), they become a transparent sham, and the basis of support can fade. Once the line is crossed, and elections do not even have the veneer of challenge, the term “competitive” stops being a helpful description of the regime.

Authoritarian elections

As Venezuela completes its authoritarian transition, elections now play a different function. Instead of using elections to broaden its basis of support, giving credit to the regime’s narrative of popular legitimacy, and nullifying the opposition’s challenges, the regime is now using elections to show its authoritarian force. Any hope for elections to provide an opportunity for regime contestation is misplaced. The regime’s reason for holding elections cannot be about its confidence in actually winning them, as is the case with other non-democratic regimes. The regime is too unpopular today, and winning in a competitive election is off the table. Nor can the regime’s reason for holding elections be to build a democratic narrative, as that narrative cannot have credibility. Today, the point for the regime is to demonstrate power, intimidate opponents, and discourage allies from thinking of defecting.

While elections may be a power-consolidating tool for the regime, that alone does not mean that they may not provide a forum for challenge. Regardless of the thin chances of actually winning, participating in elections may benefit a democratic opposition even in closed authoritarian regimes. For one, even bad elections may have a residual democratic value. Elections may provide an opportunity to denounce abuses, bring international observers to gather evidence against the regime, mobilize opponents, normalize dissenting voices, build a space for resistance, and, though perhaps rarely, take advantage of a regime’s miscalculations and defeat it.

Some of those advantages were present in the 2024 elections. In those elections, voting helped challenge Maduro’s international pretenses to popular support and showed the strength of a coordinated domestic opposition.  The election also laid bare the extent to which the regime was willing to weaponize institutions, revealing the truth of a closed dictatorship more similar to traditional modes of authoritarianism than modern and strategic “spin dictators” that avoid violence.

Compared to the 2024 elections, in 2025 the regime’s antidemocratic resort to direct repression through arrests and violence increased.  Because of the 2024 precedent of not recognizing the real results, everyone knew winning more votes was not enough to defeat Maduro.  The opposition boycotted, participation fell below 15 percent, and the result showed voters to respond more to the opposition than to the regime.  Now elections showed how authoritarian the regime had become, instead of providing a patina of democratic legitimacy.

The boycott’s aftermath

This year’s boycott frustrated any claims Maduro might have to a popular mandate.  Right after the voting on May 25^th, Maduro announced that he would present a new law to establish a “communal electoral system” that would conduct “consultations and elections.”  While still unspecified, the new electoral system will focus on “reengineering how people vote,” including a continuous gathering of polls and  opinions from local administrations on social programs and other matters.

The point, as presented by Maduro, is to follow Chávez’s idea of having a “permanent electoral power” that can democratize and transform itself to “walk and speak the language of the people of the street.” Maduro has already established the idea of incentivizing voters to participate by rewarding those “communal” districts with a higher turnout.  If these “communal elections” are to replace traditional parliamentary elections, then it will probably be end of any democratic façade in Venezuela.  The steps taken thus far have removed any prospect of organized political opposition.

As this process unfolds, the opposition will likely turn to other means to contest the stagnating Maduro regime.  Being the electoral opposition is unlikely to be one of them.