Venezuela government accused of politicising quake relief

CARACAS - The Venezuelan opposition party led by exiled former legislator and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado mobilised volunteers throughout the nation last week to collect donations for homeless earthquake survivors, but it encountered an unexpected obstacle: the National Police.

On June 25, Heidy Loicett, a leader of the opposition party, Vente, stood under a blue tarp on a sidewalk in Portuguesa, a state some 275 miles from the disaster zone, as people came by with a variety of items such as diapers, bottled water and used clothing. The police came by, too, she said.

Several Venezuelan National Police officers and officials from the federal Civil Protection agency tried to shut down the charity drive, she explained in a telephone interview after the encounter, adding that she was told that all donations had to be channeled through the federal government.

“They said we couldn’t have a donation center, that the only authorized donation drop-off centre was Civil Protection and the government,” Loicett said. “That was political persecution.”

The clash over who gets to take credit for the humanitarian relief effort for the earthquake-shattered nation highlights a much larger, high-stakes battle for political survival in a fractured Venezuela.

Last week Venezuela suffered two devastating earthquakes that killed more than 1,400 people, just six months after the US military raided the country and seized the country’s former leader, Nicolás Maduro. Critics say they fear that Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, will politicise the tragedy, using the disaster response to establish her legitimacy at a critical inflection point.

Rodríguez’s government, which did not respond to requests for comment, has said the authorities are trying to impose order and keep areas and roads hit by the earthquakes clear so relief convoys and emergency responders can do their work unimpeded.

It is also a general rule of politics that opposition figures are quick to highlight any failures of the governing party.

Rodríguez had been vice-president before the United States captured Maduro and said it was going to run the country, elevating her to the top job. Her tenure depends on the Trump administration’s approval, and her management of this crisis is also a key moment for President Donald Trump.

White House officials have said the alliance with Rodríguez was meant to stabilise Venezuela and help revive its battered economy. The disaster is likely to put that relationship to a severe test.

Experts say that tightening control over aid and stifling the opposition’s grassroots relief efforts is a page out of a decades-old authoritarian playbook. Rodríguez, they say, is gambling that international crisis management can mask the state’s internal decay and secure her hold on power.

That strategy was on full display in a widely circulated video in which a police officer appears to tell volunteers where the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the ruling government party, had authorised donation drop-offs. Donation centres set up by the opposition in other cities were told that they could not display signs reading “Donation Centre”, because those words could be used only by the government’s authorized drop-off sites, political activists said.

“They told us we could not use the words ‘donation center’, like if they had trademarked those words,” said María Oropeza, a Vente party official. “It is inevitable that they will try to use this tragedy at their favor to stay in power.”

Party officials said police backed off after crowds started gathering and taking videos. The volunteers took down the offending signs, and the drive continued.

Volunteers from the opposition planned to try to make deliveries to the earthquake zone over the weekend, but the authorities announced that civilians without authorization would be prohibited from entering La Guaira, the hardest-hit coastal area.

Government officials said the rush of volunteers in the disaster zone was blocking traffic, which was critical for the movement of heavy machinery.

“Those who do not have rescue or security duties in La Guaira state should please refrain from traveling there, as you are obstructing the movement of personnel needed for our military, police, Civil Protection, firefighters and rescue workers to reach the disaster zone,” Rodríguez said. “These are critical hours.”

She called for unity in the time of crisis, and has welcomed a number of international search and rescue delegations, including from the right-wing governments of El Salvador and Argentina.

Rodríguez’s decision to accept help from political adversaries underscored a delicate balance of projecting an image of effective disaster management while scoring political points before potential elections, said Pablo Quintero, a political consultant, who said he works mostly with the opposition in Venezuela.

“In the face of catastrophes, governments act based on political interests,” he said. “In this case, the Chavista government is acting to gain greater prominence, to demonstrate its management capacity to the international community, and in some way to send a message to the population that they have managed to unify the country.”

But Machado is acting in her own interests too, he said.

“María Corina Machado has a political agenda,” he said. “And the objective reality is that her media operatives are running a campaign to demonstrate the government’s incompetence.”

Machado was said to be trying to go back to Venezuela, which frustrated some US officials, who considered a return in the wake of an emergency to be a “political stunt,” The New York Times reported on June 27.

A spokesperson for Machado said she was not available for comment.

Rodríguez, as Maduro’s vice-president in charge of the economy, was part of a repressive government that stole a presidential election in 2024.

After the US raid in January that removed Maduro but allowed Rodríguez to stay on as interim leader, the Trump administration said Venezuela would eventually move toward elections and a restoration of democracy. The disaster engulfing Venezuela could delay such a transition, experts said.

“It’s hard to imagine that Delcy won’t use the earthquakes to delay discussions of a democratic transition; some of that is certainly legitimate in the face of such an overwhelming humanitarian emergency,” said Cynthia Arnson, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

But it may not work out as she hopes, Arnson said.

“The political effects of natural disasters are often severe,” she said. “Weeks or a few short months after the immediate emergency, the quakes are likely to magnify the incapacity of the government to meet basic needs, let alone undertake any kind of reconstruction.”

Benigno Alarcón, the former director of the Centre of Government and Political Studies at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, said there was “no doubt” that Rodríguez would try to capitalize on the catastrophe – and she would not be the first.

He said many Venezuelans still recall the 1999 mudslides that occurred in the quake zone – including La Guaira – when the ruling party’s former leader, Hugo Chávez, refused to accept humanitarian assistance from the US military.

“Remember that these are not new people in power,” he said. “These people in the government have been in government for a long time.” NYTIMES

• Sheyla Urdaneta contributed reporting.

• This article originally appeared in The New York Times.