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Outside the voting booth in Caracas, they lined up at 6am counting the years of tyranny in stacks of bills and ribs exposed outside the voting booth in Caracas were guards armed with guns, frowning at the people and thinking also of their next meal. It is a truth seldom acknowledged that people don't just vote when they hate or when they love, that sometimes people vote because they are angry, that sometimes people vote because they are hungry. Outside the voting booth in Caracas, each of them recognized this fundamental truth, the voters lining up one by one, the guards holding their guns, and the mustachioed man staring down at them from the wall, who knew and still does, that his people are hungry for change.

So if you want to go back to the origins, I think Venezuela had democracy that was oligarchic and ossified and elitist, but that used to have from the late 1950s to the 1990s two party competition and alternation in power. So it was a democracy, but it was ossified and corrupt. So that allowed for the rise of Hugo Chávez, who was military nationalist, who had actually made a coup attempt against that ossified democracy, but to then took the electoral route, and due to vast popular discontent, he was swept into office in the landslide in 1998 and he started as a democratically elected leader, but he is a populist, and populists want power, and they want more power, and they want to stay in power for a long time. And so Hugo Chávez immediately transformed the institutions to concentrate more power to get control of the legislature, soon, pack the courts, push the opposition aside. So what Hugo Chávez did he transfer? He used his democratically elected position to transform Venezuela gradually, slowly, into what we call a soft authoritarian regime. And I say soft because Hugo Chávez was tremendously charismatic. He had an electrifying personality. So Hugo Chávez could do this transformation from democracy into authoritarian rule, but not using very much violence and repression at all. So he was illiberal. He was undemocratic. He used his charisma to essentially establish his political hegemony and cement cement his authoritarian regime. But he was not brutal and repressive. Then what happens is that Chávez dies an early age of cancer, and he had these charismatic leaders are so full of themselves they don't want to nurture rivals. So he had survived himself, typically, by comparing weaklings and sycophants. And when he was about to die, he nominated one of those weaklings and sycophants, Nicholás Maduro, as his successor. So then Maduro comes in, has an authoritarian regime, but doesn't have the charismatic authority and popular support of Hugo Chávez. So soon, Maduro faces opposition challenges. What do you do if you have an authoritarian regime, you don't have a lot of popular support, you use your control of the military and you crack down. And so Maduro cracked down hard in 2014 against opposition protests. He cracked down again in 2017 he cracked down in 2019 so what he did is he transformed Hugo Chávez's soft authoritarian regime into a harsh, repressive dictatorship. By the way, much, much Hyser than Victor Orbán's in Hungary. So Orban still has a soft authoritarian regime. Venezuela has turned into a really repressive dictatorship. So these dictatorships, they don't they don't respect elections. They still hold elections to have a window dressing because they claim to have to be democratic. But they do whatever they can, ban opposition politicians. Make life hard for the opposition, control the airwaves, spent tremendously before the election, so Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, got himself re-elected in 2018 in a complete sham election that the opposition boycotted, but the opposition has no leverage against him. Protests don't work. International pressure hasn't worked, so the opposition decided this time, when Maduro came up for re-election, to challenge him in the election, thinking that the time was right for a change, because at the same time that Maduro transformed Venezuela into a brutal dictatorship, he has also ruined the economy. I mean rowing, there hasn't been a country suffering so badly outside of war, than Venezuela. Venezuela, in the last 20 years has seen its GDP drop by 75% I'm talking about 75% which is a tremendous collapse, 75% so about three or four years ago, when the economy hit, worked. Autumn, about 80, 90% of the population lived in poverty. 8 million Venezuelans have left the country in despair, and so I mean, has done total mismanagement, but holding this election, the opposition thought they could finally make dent, and opinion polls showed overwhelming support for the opposition, very low support for Maduro. The exit polls show overwhelming support for the opposition, so they clearly, clearly won, but Maduro, for reasons that I can explain later, Maduro just simply claims to have won, sits there, has support from the military, has taken over all the institutions and justice I won, and the opposition can claim whatever they want, the international community can demand whatever they want. I'll just keep governing.

Kurt, that's a incredibly helpful overview, and I'm amazed at how much you were able to pack into that one answer that really helps us understand the rise of what was first a populist authoritarian regime and what now sounds like almost an Orwellian nightmare, is dictatorship which is obviously destroying the country, and it also helps to explain the incredibly large number of Venezuelan refugees coming to the United States, for example. Why did Maduro hold this election? It was clear he was going to lose. He did ban the Leader of the Opposition, Maria Corina Machado, but even with the stand-in opposition figure, Edmundo Gonzalez, it was quite clear from weeks ago, I think, right, that the opposition was going to get more votes. Why did he subject himself to this election?

So this is interesting about these authoritarian regimes. When you go back and you mentioned my inter-war book in the inter-war years, authoritarian rulers were happy to call themselves dictators, and they were proud that they are dictators. But after the Second World War, dictatorship hasn't been that cool anymore, and especially after the end of the Cold War, when the United States in the 1990s had tremendous global hegemony and pushed countries to become liberal and democratic. Nowadays, it's not cool anymore not to hold elections. So virtually every country in the world holds elections, and a lot of these elections are complete sham. The incumbent wins by 98% of the vote. But the old elections say, oh, you know, we have a democratic facade. And I think that is especially the case in cases where authoritarian regime emerges fairly gradually from a democracy. I mean, there wasn't a military coup, you know, right now I'm down in Chile, when in Chile there was a military coup. Dictator Pinochet closed elections. I just want to do as a military dictator. But if you are populist leader who transforms his country from a democracy into an authoritarian regime, you don't want to cancel elections and then suddenly become a dictator. You try, and if you're Chávez, you have a lot of popularity, you think you can win all these elections, and you maintain elections. It's not cool not to have elections, especially in the Western Hemisphere, under the nose of the United States, in a region that in 2001 adopted a Democratic Charter that the region committed to democracy. And so you claim against all evidence that this is democratic, and this is democratic, and you all the elections, and then you try to manipulate the stage. You mentioned the banning of the main opposition candidate. You try to manipulate things in all kinds of ways so that somehow or other, you think he might be able to eke out victory. I don't know what Maduro thought, whether he thought somehow his manipulations would allow him to achieve some kind of shame victory, or whether he just thought, it doesn't matter, but not holding elections, it's just not legit anymore.

It's very hard to know. We don't have access to the inner, innner workings of the Maduro regime. We don't know some of these, some of these dictators are really quite united and believe their own propaganda. I mean, what is interesting and what I honestly do not understand, while Maduro outlawed the main opposition candidate and created all kinds of trouble for the opposition, and imprisoned opposition leaders, left and right and all the kind of thing. He allowed opinion polls to go forward, and every single credible opinion poll showed like the vote preference of 70% For the opposition and 25% for Maduro. So if so, I would find it kind of surprising if Maduro didn't know what the population was like. Maybe they thought that by for example, there are rumors that do it on election day, they created trouble for people to vote, especially opposition neighborhoods, you know, long lines and very slow movement, and whereas in their own neighborhoods, you know, so they maybe they thought, in just manipulating the voting process or that they could somehow others manipulate ballot boxes, that they would come up with the result. It's hard to know what exactly is going on, but, but what I frankly, wonder is whether Maduro just thought the result doesn't matter. I mean, he said before the election, the famous quote, I'll win by hook or crook. It doesn't matter. You know, this way or other. And so these dictators, you know, he knew that he had a lot of support from the military, which is absolutely decisive, for reasons that I can explain. And so in some sense, it doesn't matter to him what the election result is. He just sits there, protected by the military, knows he will stay in power. The domestic opposition can shout and yell. The international community can make pressure. He has enough support from China, Russia, Iran, and he'll just sit there. He sits on oil, so he has some economic lifeline and election result in some basic sense, doesn't matter that much to him.

Why is the military support so critical. Why does that make or break Maduro's regime?

So this is interesting, in any authoritarian regime, ultimately, it comes down to who controls organized coercion. Because if you're under an authoritarian regime, you don't have procedural, institutional legitimacy, and so you need, ultimately, the capacity to rely on coercion if there's problem, if there is protests, you need to have the capacity to clamp down. Now, front line of that is the police and these paramilitaries that they have in these paramilitary gangs that they have in Venezuela. But ultimately, when push comes to shove, it depends on the military. The military is the mainstay of every single authoritarian regime, the Ultima ratio. So and Maduro has that military support for the same reason that Maduro feels compelled to stay in power, which is the following. During his 11 years as a dictator, Maduro has committed a bunch of human rights violations. He has ensured military loyalty by allowing the military to engage in large scale corruption, contraband. The military and Maduro are involved in international drug trafficking. Two of Maduro's nephews were apprehended in 2015 for involvement in drug trafficking. So the whole clique in power, Maduro, his political support, his narrow aids and the military, which is the mainstay, they're all essentially a crime cartel mafia and so the problem is the international community has become legalized. The international community says we don't accept corruption. We don't accept human rights violations anymore. And so the international community has threatened to indict Maduro and a whole bunch of his underlings for their human rights violations, for their corruption, for their involvement in drug trafficking, not only the US, but also the International Criminal Court. And so that whole mafia in power essentially feels compelled to stay in power, because if they were to lose power, they go to jail, to jail. And you see the international presidents. When the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, stepped down in 2022 within three weeks, he was in chains and extradited to the United States. And so that's what Maduro and all the main generals fear. If they lose power, they're going to go to jail forever, and so that's the reason why they cling to power, regardless of what happens. And by Maduro can be assured of military support. They all, you know this saying they all have to hang together so that they don't hang separately.

That is the thing, right? I mean, you think France would want to have sit Maduro in some fancy, fancy mansion in the Riviera, you know, sipping Gin Tonic by lying around the pool in France? I mean, you know, this has become impossible. Can you imagine the outcry? Of course, nobody would want the guy. The only places that he could go to would be North Korea, which is not precisely, very attractive. And so that is a terrible dilemma, because you refer, you know, you probably alluded, to the south of France to former dictator of Haiti Duvalier. He went to France. At that time, there was still, you know, Haiti, former French colony. He could go to France. And he left. And so he ended that nightmare in Haiti. But nowadays Maduro go to France. I mean, no way. And so that is the problem we would be the international community would need to designate like St Helena or something at the safe haven dictators and give them beautiful mansions there. But, you see, for my joke, it's not a viable alternative, and it's right, it's not a credible offer. The opposition, knowing of the terrible dilemma, the opposition said, Maduro, you know, if we win, we will negotiate with you and exit. That's not credible, because if they win, and Maduro recognizes the victory is in a very weak position. Is he going to believe that they will give him safe haven, and even if the Venezuelan opposition would want it. How about the US and how about the International Criminal Court? I mean, now in this election controversy, the head of the OAS has requested the of the International Criminal Court to have an order order of imprisonment from Maduro. You can't easily have that go away.

I unfortunately do not see a breaking point, and I do not see a realistic chance for Maduro leaving office anytime soon. I think the opposition is enormously courageous. I admire the courage of people to not only to go out and campaign and to be opposition candidates, but even to vote for the opposition. I admire their courage in protesting, but I do not think that they have the cloud by far domestically to really do something. And the international community, the international community, of course, is divided, as I mentioned. Maduro, has support from the kind of bad axis of China and Russia and Iran and whatever Western countries, many countries have not recognized the result of the election, and they're pushing for Venezuela to make transparent the voting process and to negotiate and all this kind of thing. And Maduro just doesn't do it, you know. So here, in some sense, surprisingly, a group of left-wing governments in Latin America, led by Luna da Silva, who, as president, although his party recognized the election as President, hasn't done it. Gustavo Pedro of Mexico and of Colombia, sorry, and then AMLO of Mexico, they have all pushed Venezuela to make the Election Results transparent, and Maduro says, yeah, and maybe not, and maybe whatever, and just doesn't do it. And so I think the international community essentially has no leverage. What leverage do you have? I mean, the country, the country's economy, is going terribly, but oil gives it a little bit of a lifeline, and Maduro doesn't care. I mean, what does Maduro care? Sitting in his palace surrounded by military people who are compelled to support him, if 80% of the population starve, I mean, it just doesn't and what can the international community do? The United States has imposed sanctions. Doesn't do any good, because countries like China, Russia, Iran, enable Maduro to evade sanctions to a good extent. The Latin American governments, you know, they make like diplomatic moves, but they're not going to. I mean, what would it take? I mean, honestly, it would take a military invasion of Venezuela. And nobody is prepared to do that well.

Well Kurt, what about the possibility that we've seen in other countries such as Ukraine, where mid and lower level members of the military who see their families suffering, who see their neighborhoods destroyed, who are ashamed of what they're seeing, that they at some point. Point turn on the generals and and their dictator.

So this is a good point, and I think that two reasons that it hasn't happened in Venezuela, um, the first is that Hugo Chávez faced a coup attempt in 2002 and then he got of course scared and what do you do? And he was very close to Fidel Castro of Cuba, and Cuba sent 2,000 intelligence agents that essentially helped Chávez purge the military and install an internal surveillance and control system that was very strong and very effective. And so they essentially the military, I mean Maduro is aware that the only real threat he would face would be from the defection of military. And so they try to prevent it at all cost. Through surveillance, through harsh crack downs, through purges, I mean, there are a lot of stories that military people who showed some sign of disloyalty are being tortured, are being killed. So so coercion has enabled him to keep military loyalty. The second thing is the following. What is the situation in which lower level military people defect? Essentially, if you have sustained mass protests that get suppressed with large-scale violence, and it goes on and on and on. And then at some point or other, members of the military might say, I don't wanna I don't wanna do this anymore. But in some sense, you know, and I don't know how to say that, fortunately or unfortunately, from the perspective of what we are saying, unfortunately, there were large-scale protests in Venezuela for two, three days. Then it died down because the repression was effective. And so two, three days, you know, you crack down. Yes. You you imprison 2,000 people. You kill a bunch of people. It wasn't sustained enough, and it wasn't broad enough. And when you see where the so, like, the recent opposition protest last Saturday was in the eastern part of Caracas, which is a middle class neighborhood. If the protests had led to a mass outpouring of popular protests some some popular neighborhoods like Petare protested, but the whole western part of Caracas is the real stronghold of Chavista support. And there wasn't very much protest going on there if there had been really massive outpouring. If it hadn't only been, know, predominantly educated middle class people, but if there had been, you know, millions of poor Venezuelans just pouring down from the slums and hills and poor neighborhoods of Caracas into the city center, besieging the Presidential Palace. If there have been a real kind of popular assault on the regime and that had gone on and then there had been just killing, killing, killing, killing, then you might have seen defection. But but the regime managed very quickly to contain and suppress the protests and confine them primarily to the middle-class areas, and that is just simply not enough to prompt large-scale military defection.

What what do you think US policy should be? Are we is it appropriate to keep sanctions on Venezuela? Are there any any changes you would recommend in US policy?

I I think I think that the US has tried a number of things. You know, the Biden administration was involved in a negotiation effort last year and last fall, offering easing of sanctions if the regime actually went ahead with honest elections. And as we see now, it didn't work very well. I I'm sorry that I think kind of approximation doesn't work very much. That regime has negotiated on so many accounts essentially in bad faith using it as a stalling tactic, get over temporary problems, and then just simply cement its hold again. I think the only option is essentially to sanction the hell out of them. And, you know, for from the part of the United States. I I I do not think that the US has a lot of options. I mean, it shows in some sense how weak the United States has become internationally even in its own Western Hemisphere. I mean, when you think that the United States has been unable to forestall Venezuelans descend into authoritarianism, into brutal dictatorship, into total implosion and destruction of the country, that the United States has not had any real leverage over that process in a country so import, you know, even for the oil supply of the US and the world as Venezuela. It shows you when people talk about US or Germany and US predominance and whatever. I mean, the Venezuelan case is a striking example how weak the United States has become even in the Western Hemisphere.

No. I absolutely agree. I think the international community has to face up to that terrible paradox that this legalization of international affairs has this unintended side effect. And I do not know what could be done to, you know I mean, I made the joke about Saint Helena. There would have to be some kinda international safe haven, some way of sort of emergency amnesty, whatever, and it would have to be credible and enforced by the international community, unfortunately, limiting that international regime of prosecuting violators of human rights and other norms in order to I mean, not only induce, but allow them to step down from power. I mean and how to do that? Man, that is a very, very difficult how to build an international regime in a world that is so divided between the democratic forces that are on the defensive now and sort of ascending authoritarian forces of China and Russia and Iran, whatever. I do not know how that could be done, but it's an urgent agenda.