Nicolás Maduro needs a miracle to legally win the presidential elections on July 28. And he looks for it everywhere. “They put up a stage in Trujillo and there were 20,000 people there. A photo shows something impressive: a light on the stage and an image that tells us that José Gregorio Hernández (the doctor of the poor, declared blessed by the Vatican) blesses us and protects us. He is with us,” the “people president” recounted with emotion, while Chavista television showed the photograph of that “miraculous” light.
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The most metaphysical Maduro not only transformed a few hundred people into a massive audience. He also sought another miracle from José Gregorio, a very popular religious icon, prayed in many Venezuelan homes for health and well-being. Something similar to the “spiritual” event in the 2013 campaign, when he felt the presence of Hugo Chávez in bird format, coming to him to tell him that he was the chosen one.
Eleven years later, the “conductor of victories” faces an impossible campaign, with a country destroyed by the revolutionary failure and with an open wound due to the flight of almost nine million Venezuelans. This is confirmed by the latest survey by Hercón Consultores: the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, maintains an advantage of 67.3% compared to the 23.5% that the president garners.
What is Chavismo’s recipe to face such an uphill climb? A mix of miracles, karaokes and fakes with the state’s millionaire portfolio in the midst of the communication hegemony imposed by the revolution. And with a strange strategy that until now has only achieved a certain amount of national criticism: acting in the slipstream of the “freedom campaign” undertaken by the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who is touring the country as if it were an emotional hurricane.
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