Until about two weeks ago, Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro looked like he’d managed to sideline the opposition enough to ensure a win in this summer’s presidential election.
His government had disqualified the leading opposition candidate, María Corina Machado. Then, for good measure, it banned her stand-in as well. The familiar specter of division and disorganization hung over the beleaguered opponents of Maduro, who has run Venezuela for more than a decade.
Then the opposition united to name the little-known, 74-year-old former diplomat Edmundo González Urrutia as their candidate. González has delegated most of his campaigning to Machado, and his popularity has soared. A poll over the weekend showed he already holds a 40-point lead over Maduro, with 62% of respondents saying they’d vote for him.
The government has already recognized him as a candidate, tarring him as an agent of “imperialism” – but that presents a problem. By moving against him, Maduro could overplay his hand in a country already reeling from economic mismanagement and US sanctions. But facing Gonzalez directly might leave Maduro vulnerable to the one thing a strongman can’t accept: losing.
Ian Bremmer answers questions straight from you, GZERO readers, on whatever has been on your mind.
What, exactly, is the Trump administration thinking? A well-worn question finds fresh fodder this week as the White House prepares to impose a sweeping new set of tariffs on Brazil. Again.
“There will never be elections here again,” Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proclaimed on Sunday.
In this “ask ian,” Ian Bremmer argues that the debate over whether the United States or China will lead artificial intelligence is overshadowing a more important question: who will govern a technology advancing faster than governments can regulate?