Nicolás Maduro’s campaign distances itself from the red, copies the opposition and offers changes, according to specialists

A young man walks toward the camera talking about how Venezuela “has improved step by step,” has the “greatest economic growth” in America, and guarantees free education, peace, and stability. The environment that surrounds it changes and goes from bridges, fields and coasts to markets, schools and factories. It is a promotional video of the ruling party that lasts 29 seconds.

“Maduro’s achievements, Venezuela’s achievements,” the boy can be heard saying in off to crown the latest announcement by ruler Nicolás Maduro, a few weeks before the formal start of the campaign for the presidential election in the country: on July 4.

In it, red does not prevail, the color associated with the Bolivarian revolution of former president Hugo Chávez. Instead, the same light tones of the shirts that the head of state wears at his political events predominate, while he promises “hope” and a better “future.”

Chavismo has already launched the campaign to achieve the re-election of Maduro on July 28, whose popularity is not at its best, according to surveys, so, according to specialists, it has to offer a change.

“We are seeing a Maduro who, even surfing on the figure of Chávez, wants to be a little less Chavista in colors, less intense, because you have a country that massively demands political change,” he explained to the Voice of America the political consultant Carmen Beatriz Fernández, expert in electoral campaigns and misinformation.

The Chavista message runs through social networks and direct messaging applications in a nation plunged into a general crisis since 2013, with negative economic indicators never seen before, political tensions, foreign sanctions and a social emergency.

Eight out of 10 Venezuelans want political change to solve this reality, according to multiple surveys by private firms. The candidate for reelection barely exceeds 20% of voting intention, while the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia exceeds half of the electoral preference, according to those same polls.

“The ambition for political change is so strong that even he offers it,” diagnosed Fernández, a professor at the University of Navarra, Spain.

Forced to go out into the street

The marketing of presidents who aspire to be re-elected is usually accompanied by mentions of a more hopeful future and a review of their political achievements, explained the specialist in strategic communication, crisis and image, Laura Castellanos.

According to the analyst, the head of state has reinforced his current political message on social networks, as did the current leaders Javier Milei, in Argentina, and Gustavo Petro, in Colombia.

Maduro also “had to take to the streets” as a “reaction to the campaign” of the opposition, which has visited towns and cities in at least 13 states in recent weeks, Castellanos said.

The president and his cabinet, including his wife Cilia Flores, and his trusted partners, parliamentary leader Jorge Rodríguez and his sister, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, have responded with similar participations in the interior of the country, he highlighted.

“It’s the campaign that Venezuelans are used to, the ‘I’m here’. The government has had to put an extra fee (on their social media campaign) and they have had to tell it (their message) live and direct to Venezuelans,” he commented to the VOA.

“We need the caress of the other, for you to tell me face to face that you need me, that in Venezuela is very important. This is what the opposition does very quietly and they do not eat any type of tares from the official sector,” added the specialist.

Maduro has become a “campaign imitator” and is “on a completely reactive wave” to the political acts of the opposition, said Fernández, for his part.

“Diosdado Cabello (Chavista leader) goes to all the places where María Corina Machado goes, simultaneously. If Machado is carried on popular shoulders, Maduro makes a simulation of being carried on shoulders, even if they are his own bodyguards,” she noted.

Colors of moderation

Luis Toty Medina, political consultant and director of the communications firm Poliestrategia, highlighted that the framework in which Maduro and Chavismo try to fit their current campaign “is not new,” but rather goes back to Chávez’s electoral times, since 2006.

“Chavismo in each presidential election softens its message and sweetens its image,” to the point of “nuanced” the color palette of its graphic proposal, he explained.

Momentarily abandoning the color red for a “soft” blue allows Maduro to “distance himself from radical and extremist rhetoric” in favor of messages of plurality, said Toty Medina, founder of the Venezuelan Association of Political Consultants.

“The emotional axis in which it intends to move is that of breadth, without sectarianism, of inclusion,” as when Chávez appealed to “love” in the 2006 presidential election, or used the slogan “homeland, socialism and victory,” instead of mentioning “death”, in 2012, he indicated.

Maduro changed tones in 2018, when he used “patriotic” colors (yellow, blue and red) and his slogan read “together we can do more,” he said.

Toty Medina highlighted that Chavismo faces its “most compromising” electoral process with a graphic proposal that “blurs its postulates” and makes a “moderate” offer.

In his opinion, this campaign is sometimes “victimist”, trying to “install a story of being the one who defends himself from an opposing political force that attacks them and tries to make them disappear.”

The common use of messages like “let’s go forward” and “hope is in the street” ensures that there is more talk about the future than about the present and the “questioned” past in terms of Maduro’s public management, he commented in conversation with the Voice of America.

Fernández, for his part, warned that Maduro is going through electoral times where “it is not easy at all” and, therefore, he seeks refuge in the shadow of Chavismo after having invested “money and talent” in trying to build his own leadership.

Calling the election for Chávez’s birthday, July 28, is one of their arguments.

He specifically recalled the “Super Mustache” campaign, which the Venezuelan government launched 3 years ago and where the president was compared to a superhero.

According to private surveys, 1 in 4 Venezuelans declare themselves a sympathizer of Chávez’s political postulates.

Castellanos, for his part, said he observed an evolution in the ruling party’s campaign and said he was waiting to see how it will take its final “turn.”

“The opposition is setting the tone for the first time and is not going to let the narrative of this campaign be removed,” he said, before warning that Chavismo still has “a lot of money and power.”

Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channels Youtube, WhatsApp and to newsletter. Turn on notifications and follow us on Facebook, x and instagram.