Venezuela's diaspora flexes its might

Bogota, Colombia – On the night of July 28, Gaby Arellano, a 41-year-old Venezuelan political refugee, watched her country’s presidential election unfold from Colombia’s capital, Bogota.

She expected the outcome to spark a new future for Venezuela. That hope, however, turned to disappointment and frustration when Venezuela's electoral body claimed victory for incumbent President Nicolas Maduro.

The opposition has since accused the Maduro government of stealing the election. And Arellano has become one of the most prominent voices in a protest movement that has spilled beyond Venezuela’s borders, as citizens clamour for transparent voting results.

With nearly 8 million people abroad, the Venezuelan diaspora represents more than one-fourth of the country’s total population — and large swaths of that group have thrown their support behind pro-democracy efforts back home.

Arellano, a former member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, has been a leader in those efforts, joining thousands of fellow migrants and refugees in calling on foreign governments to pressure Maduro to release the full voting results.

“Do not be silent. Do not be accomplices,” Arellano told a room full of Colombian senators in an August 6 address.

In the weeks since the presidential election, Venezuelan migrants and refugees are utilising their political savvy to lobby legislators and help shape foreign policy.

Humanitarian networks based abroad have been repurposed to mobilise protests. Expat-led social media platforms are sharing the latest news about the elections.

Carolina Jimenez Sandoval, president of the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group, said that, this past year, she has seen Venezuelans abroad form political organisations and consolidate their power like never before.

“In the case of the Venezuelan diaspora, we’re seeing a much stronger political voice,” Jimenez Sandoval explained.

“It’s not only because of their size, but because of their visibility and their political goals.”

International groups have long accused the Maduro government of suppressing political dissent through intimidation and violence, triggering a democratic backslide in Venezuela.

Critics see last month’s election as the latest example of his record of human rights abuses.

Maduro had been seeking a third term in office, but early polling showed his opponent, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez, headed for a landslide victory.

Normally, the government releases voting tallies from individual polling stations after a major nationwide vote. On the night of the election, however, the National Electoral Council (CNE) announced Maduro had won with 51 percent of the vote — and refused to release a vote breakdown.

The opposition responded by declaring Gonzalez the winner and publishing voting tallies it claimed to have gotten from individual polling stations as proof.

The contested election has prompted widespread protests in Venezuela and violent crackdowns from the government.

More than 1,500 people, including minors, have been arrested on charges such as terrorism since July 22, according to Foro Penal, a Venezuelan human rights group.

Another independent monitoring initiative, Monitor De Víctimas, found that at least 23 people have been killed amid antigovernment protests.

“The Venezuelan cause defies politics on the right and left,” Arellano said in her appeal to Colombia’s legislature.

She called on the senators to pressure the Maduro government to respect human rights and democracy. “This is our message to the Colombian Congress and to parliaments across the hemisphere.”

By harnessing their political power, members of the Venezuelan diaspora, like Arellano, are hoping to make a difference from their host countries in Latin America, where a majority of the diaspora is settled.

Heads of state in the region are spearheading negotiations with the Maduro government.

Colombia and Brazil, allies of the Maduro government, have taken the lead in trying to find solutions to the electoral dispute. They have not recognised either Maduro or Gonzalez as the winner of the elections and instead have called on the government to release paper ballots.

“Whatever the will of the Venezuelan people, Colombia will respect it,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro told the newspaper Le Monde. "This is a delicate moment, and all parties must be prepared to manage it peacefully.”

In their role as mediators, the leaders of those two countries also pitched their own proposals for a resolution that addressed concerns on both sides.

On August 15, for example, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva proposed holding new elections in Venezuela.

On the same day, President Petro floated the idea of alternating power between the Maduro government and the opposition.

But both ideas were quickly rebuffed by opposition members inside and outside of Venezuela.

The two countries also reacted with a joint statement last week when Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of Maduro’s claims to victory, without offering proof to support it.

Colombia and Brazil reiterated their call for the Maduro government to release the voting tallies — but they also demanded an end to international sanctions against Venezuela, a source of pressure on its fragile economy.

Meanwhile, the governments of Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Argentina, Uruguay and Panama have recognized Gonzalez as the newly elected president of Venezuela — a stance advocates in the diaspora hope more world leaders will adopt in the lead-up to the January inauguration.

In legislatures in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and other Latin American countries, Venezuelan activists — many of whom are political leaders in exile — are also sitting down with their fellow lawmakers in hopes of shaping policy.

“If we’re democrats, then democracy must stand above our political alliances and ideological visions,” said William Clavija, a 34-year-old migrant and president of Venezuela Global, a Brazil-based humanitarian organisation that has advocated for election transparency.

Gabriel Hernandez, a 42-year-old refugee who fled to Mexico City in 2018, said this latest election cycle has united the Venezuelan diaspora despite the thousands of kilometres that separate them from home.

He called the cohesion in the opposition movement — both at home and abroad — “unprecedented”.

It started, he said, with the 2023 opposition primary, which invited Venezuelans both in the country and abroad to vote for a candidate to challenge Maduro.

More than 2.3 million people ultimately took part, selecting opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in an outpouring of support.

When Machado was forced to drop out of the race, due to restrictions placed on her by the Maduro government, Hernandez said that popular momentum was transferred to Gonzalez’s campaign.

“It was an opportunity for the Venezuelan diaspora to cast off its sense of hopelessness and begin to believe in change again,” said Hernandez.

For many in the diaspora, the motivation for their political involvement is their dream of returning home. It drives Hernandez’s activism, too. After his father’s death in Mexico City last month, Hernandez is determined to fulfil his father’s last wish: spreading his ashes in Venezuela.

To that end, Hernandez is busy forging political alliances in Mexico City. His campaign has begun to show results.

On August 17, during a global day of protest convened by Machado, migrants and refugees assembled in more than 300 cities around the world, waving Venezuela’s tricoloured flag and chanting “Freedom!”

More than 1,200 demonstrators congregated in Mexico City alone, according to Hernandez. Some Mexican politicians, like former Senator Mariana Gomez del Campo, marched shoulder-to-shoulder with the protesters in a welcome show of solidarity.

“It made us feel like we’re not alone,” said Hernandez.