If votes alone decide the outcome, Venezuela’s presidential election scheduled for July 28 could spell the end for President Nicolas Maduro and his authoritarian government. That’s why many observers question whether Maduro will accept a victory for opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, pointing to all the options at his disposal for holding onto power, ranging from rigging the count in a close race to resorting to violent repression in the face of an overwhelming opposition victory.
But Maduro’s calculus is not the only element on the government side that deserves attention. As a civilian who relies on the military as a pillar of his power, Maduro must also consider an important and still uncertain factor: how the Venezuelan military would respond to an electoral outcome that, if respected, would bring an end to the long dominance of Venezuela’s Chavista regime.
The consolidation of democracy in Latin America in recent decades and the resulting scarcity of coup attempts in the region make it hard to point to exact historical parallels for the choice facing Venezuela’s military. Yet there have been crucial junctures where military coups were considered and only averted thanks to the initiative of influential military officers.