When Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro’s government and his country’s opposition signed an agreement in October to push for free and fair elections this year, it was seen as a ray of hope after years of authoritarian rule and economic freefall.
In a sign of goodwill, the United States has temporarily lifted some of the economic sanctions that have crippled the country’s crucial oil industry.
But six months later, the Maduro administration has taken several measures that have diminished the chances of a legitimate election, and a frustrated Biden administration announced Wednesday that it was letting sanctions relief expire.
Reintroducing the penalties could have significant consequences for the future of Venezuelan democracy, the economy and migration in the region.
“Maduro and his representatives did not fully comply with the spirit and letter of the agreement,” said a senior government official who spoke to a group of journalists on background to discuss a sensitive diplomatic issue.
Another top official discussing the reinstated sanctions cited the “disqualification of candidates and parties on technicalities, and what we see as a continuing pattern of intimidation and repression against opposition figures and civil society.”
The sanctions relief expires at midnight on Wednesday, but the official said there would be a “45-day wind-down period for transactions related to oil and gas sector activities” so that the expiration “does not create uncertainty in the the global energy sector.”
The Venezuelan government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But on Monday, Mr. Maduro said in a televised address, anticipating the restoration of sanctions: “We are not a gringo colony. Venezuela will continue its economic march.”
The United States has imposed sanctions on some Venezuelan leaders for years, but the Trump administration significantly tightened them in 2019 after the United States accused Mr. Maduro of fraud in the last presidential election.
The move was intended to oust the Maduro government from power, but Maduro has managed to maintain his grip even as sanctions have led to economic misery for many Venezuelans.
Venezuelan oil imports to the United States – its largest customer – are effectively banned. Oil is Venezuela’s main source of export revenue, and the sanctions have delivered a devastating economic blow that has contributed to a mass exodus of Venezuelans.
The sanctions relief allowed Venezuela to sell its crude oil freely for a period of six months.
Mr. Maduro, in power for 11 years, has long sought the lifting of sanctions, while the United States and its allies in the Venezuelan opposition have demanded that Mr. Maduro allow competitive elections that would give his political opponents a legitimate chance to give. when winning.
Although the agreement signed last year in Barbados was an important step forward, many were skeptical that Maduro would ever allow elections with a real possibility that he would lose.
Just days after the agreement was signed, a former Venezuelan lawmaker, María Corina Machado, won the primaries with more than 90 percent of the vote. Her victory and high turnout showed, experts said, that she had a strong chance of defeating Maduro in free and fair elections.
Since then, the Maduro government has erected even more barriers to prevent the possibility of a competitive vote.
The country’s highest court disqualified Ms Machado in January over what the judges said were financial irregularities that took place when she was a national lawmaker. These types of disqualifications are a common tactic used by Maduro to keep strong competitors off the ballot.
The government then, using technical electoral maneuvers, prevented an opposition coalition from putting forward another preferred candidate. The opposition was eventually allowed to put forward another candidate, Edmundo González, a former diplomat, but it is unclear whether his name will appear on the ballot in the July 28 elections.
One opposition party was allowed to officially register another candidate: Manuel Rosales, the governor of the populous state of Zulia, whose candidacy is widely seen as approved by Mr. Maduro, according to political analysts.
An unclassified U.S. intelligence report from February said Maduro was likely to win the election and remain in power “because of his control over state institutions that influence the electoral process and his willingness to exercise his power.”
Although the Maduro government had placed allies on the Venezuelan electoral council, the intelligence report said it “also sought to prevent blatant voting fraud.”
Six of Ms. Machado’s campaign associates have been arrested and six others have gone into hiding since warrants were issued for their arrest. Men on motorcycles have attacked supporters at her events. Many Venezuelans living abroad have been unable to register to vote due to expensive and burdensome requirements.
Now that sanctions have been reimposed, experts say the Venezuelan government is unlikely to reconsider its anti-democratic actions.
The Maduro government has “no further incentive to make more concessions or even maintain some of the concessions they have made so far,” said Mariano de Alba, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group think tank. “So we could be moving towards a more unequal playing field on the electoral side.”
This move could also affect migration in the region.
Exhausted by years of economic struggle and a lack of freedoms, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have tried to reach the border with the United States over the past two years, creating a political and humanitarian crisis for the Biden administration.
Around the time of the Barbados agreement, Venezuela also agreed to accept Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States, a move intended to demonstrate President Biden’s aggressive approach to record border crossings and to deport other Venezuelans scares who might consider the trip.
But those deportation flights stopped in February without any explanation. Now that sanctions have been reimposed, it is unlikely that they will resume.
According to experts, sanctions relief over the past six months also had a modest but notable effect on the Venezuelan economy. Oil exports recently hit a four-year high and inflation hit a 10-year low.
But the resumption of sanctions could reverse these gains. A struggling economy and the strong possibility that Maduro could win another illegitimate election could lead to a new wave of migration, experts say.
While the Biden administration said it would reinstate sanctions, another U.S. official said the administration could still allow individual companies to do business with Venezuela’s oil and gas sector on a case-by-case basis.
Allowing such limited dealings with Venezuela gives the United States some leverage in talks with the Maduro government, experts said.