Venezuela Presidential Elections

Speaker 1: Welcome to the World of Intelligence, a podcast for you to discover the latest analysis of global military and security trends within the open- source defense intelligence community. Now, onto the episode with your host, Harry Kemsley.

Harry Kemsley: Hello, and welcome to this edition of Janes' World of Intelligence, your host, Harry Kemsley, and as usual, Sean Corbett, my co- host. Hello, Sean.

Sean Corbett: Hi, Harry.

Harry Kemsley: Sean, this weekend, I gather there is a very important event in a very interesting part of the world, specifically in Venezuela. I think this will be an opportunity for us to look at the power of open- source intelligence in a slightly more predictive way, rather than just reporting. So, you and I have the great privilege of inviting two experts to this conversation, both of them colleagues from Janes. And I'm delighted to introduce Estefania. Hello, Estefania.

Estefania Dominguez: Hi, Harry. Happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Harry Kemsley: And just give us a line, if you would, Estefania of your role in Janes for the listener who doesn't know who you are.

Estefania Dominguez: Yeah. Well, I'm Estefania Dominguez, and I'm a senior analyst for the Americas Regional Desk in Janes' Country Intelligence Department, where I cover several countries across Latin America, with a principal focus on Mexico and Venezuela.

Harry Kemsley: Very good. Thank you very much. And my second guest, our second guess, Matt, Matt Henman. Hello, Matt.

Matt Henman: Hi, Harry. Hi, Sean. Great to be here with you. Just a heads- up, I also work with Estefania. I head up the Americas Desk in Janes' Country Intelligence Department.

Harry Kemsley: Perfect. So, two perfectly good contributors to this, and a very, very interesting conversation to follow. So, let's get started. Venezuela, Estefania, I'm going to come to you first in terms of an understanding of, what is the context of this weekend? Why is it important? Why should we be thinking about this country, this region even to some extent, but certainly this event?

Estefania Dominguez: Right. So, Venezuela will be facing a presidential election this Sunday. And to understand how we got to this point, we do have to provide a little bit of context, historical context. Because this has been evolving a lot for the past 25 years in Venezuela. So, this all started with since Hugo Chávez became president in 1999, where he introduces a constitution, in which this new constitution reforms the three powers of state. These three powers of state is like in the modern democracies. These are the three powers that keep the checks and balances of a healthy democracy. So, with this constitution, Chávez changed the legislative power, turning the National Assembly into a single chamber. Like, the parliament is a single chamber. And then, he changes the executive power in terms of allowing the president to rule by decree, with agreement of the National Assembly. And the legislative power, in terms of the Supreme Court, it changes to the tribunal or Supreme Tribunal of Justice. And during Chávez's presidency, he nationalizes many, like the petroleum and many other areas of the economy. And in 2009, he introduces an amendment to the constitution, allowing the indefinite reelection of presidents. And in 2012, Chávez had his last presidential election, because he died in March 2013. And by the moment Chávez dies, all the institutions, all the powers of the states, are ruled or are under the control of the executive power, the president. So, when Chávez dies, the economy is already struggling in Venezuela. And after he dies, four days later, Maduro became the president in charge. Snap elections were called for in April 2013, and then he became officially the president of Venezuela. And for the first two years of his presidency, he ruled by decree, holding all the control of all the institutions and all the powers of the state. But in December 2015, the National Assembly, there were elections, there were parliamentary elections in 2015. And the National Assembly now became ruled or controlled by the opposition, who won a super majority of the congress. So, after this moment, the political crisis started. And what we're seeing today is basically something that really started in 2016. Because this National Assembly, controlled by the opposition, became really confrontational and very direct.

Harry Kemsley: So, just so I understand that then, so we're seeing something this weekend that is at the end of a 11 or 12- year process of conflicts and opposition?

Estefania Dominguez: Right. Right.

Harry Kemsley: And I'll come to you just a second, Sean.

Estefania Dominguez: Yes. So, by 2016, Maduro couldn't rule by decree anymore, because the National Assembly is not under his control. So, he starts ruling under several states of exception, economic emergency, and then the health emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic. And at the same time, in 2016, inflation started to get right out of control. The currency started to get devaluated, the bolívar, fuel prices increased, and also the cost of the food prices increased considerably. So, the National Assembly also tried to get rid of Maduro, convoking a referendum to remove him from power. And 2017 became the year that for Venezuelans is considered a collective trauma. Because it got really violent, protests got out of control. We saw many deaths during these protests. And the worst part is the humanitarian crisis caused by the economic crisis. People didn't have enough money to buy food, so we saw people struggling a lot in that regard. Famine was actually a thing in Venezuela. So, the crisis got really, really bad. And the political crisis started in 2017 to get really bad, because the Tribunal of Supreme Justice or the High Court, or the Supreme Court, decided to remove the National Assembly's constitutional powers and transfer these powers to the executive power, to Maduro. So, protests got really violent because of that. And then, we saw US sanctions coming after this, which aggravated the economy, the already critical state of the economy, the humanitarian and the social and political chaos that it was already 2017. So, what we are seeing is that after that, the presidential elections of 2019 and the parliamentary elections of 2020 virtually lacked any opposition presence, or a real opposition. Because the state major or Oficialismo, how they're called, is like the Chavismo who is in power, the way that they controlled it is, the opposition weren't able to fully participate in these events.

Harry Kemsley: At the point that the opposition were unable to participate, did that, in the eyes of the international community, make the results of these elections illegitimate?

Estefania Dominguez: Yes. In the eyes of some countries, yeah, it was illegitimate. Because the elections in 2018 also saw, for instance, Juan Guaidó becoming the president in charge, or calling himself the president in charge. And the US is actually one of the countries who backed Juan Guaidó and transferred some of the legitimacy to Juan Guaidó's role, trying to remove the legitimacy of Maduro as president. But as we saw later, after the pandemic in 2020 and with 2021 and how things started to get worse in the world, but also in Venezuela, the route that all countries decided to go to is to try to agree something with Maduro, in order to allow the 2024 presidential elections to take place. So, while at the beginning it was not a legitimate president, over time it got legitimized again. Because they need to have an agreement with Maduro in order for the presidential elections of this Sunday to take place.

Harry Kemsley: Fantastic. Now, if I take that then as the background and context for the weekend's presidential election, in a moment, Matt, I'll come to you in terms of, so how do we track that using open sources? What are the kind of things that we're looking for that will help us understand that sort of context and be able to track it? So, I'll come to you with that question in just a second, Matt. Sean, what are your thoughts in terms of the situation here in terms of the regional impact or, indeed, the significance of the election itself?

Sean Corbett: Yeah. So, these elections are far more strategic than some people may think. So, there will be some listeners out there saying, " Why on earth are we covering Venezuela?" Well, there's two really important questions actually, in addition to the stuff that Estefania has already mentioned, like the potential for migration. There's been a huge exodus for humanitarian issues, and just local and recent stability. But there will be all eyes on this election. Because if nothing else, it is a litmus from those authoritarian states out there, the Russias, the Chinese, the North Koreans of this world, who do not see the natural international order as being the same as we do. So, for them, it's all about their own interest, their own power basis, et cetera. And you could argue that Venezuela is the same case. So, they'll be looking at, and I suspect, doing some influencing of, the election results, to see if their particular model actually stands up to scrutiny. And of course, the US and other allies will be looking at it from the counter perspective to say, " Okay, what other influences are going to be on there? And has Western, as we know, Western liberal democracy, got a chance here?" So, the stakes are pretty high. And then, of course, there's the oil issue as well, which I think I'm right saying that Venezuela still has the largest supplies of exploitable oil in the world right now, I think.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's certainly significant. There's no doubt about that. All right, we'll come back to that point in a second. So, Matt, as an open- source analyst, how are we looking at these kinds of situations? How are we tracking them? What kind of sources can we use?

I'm sure as Estefania can attest to, it's a comparatively closed media environment. So, one of the big challenges we have is verifying the information that comes out of Venezuela through open sources, is penetrating some of the disinformation, or trying to get to the heart of what's actually occurring on the ground. It's often something that poses a real challenge for us. And we have to make sure that we implement the rigorous analytical standards that we have in place to ensure that the information that we're imbibing is assessed, is assured, et cetera. And then, we are able to put into practice information and analysis that is as accurate and as verified as possible from our perspective. We use PMESII framework that underpins our country intelligence content as a way to make critical national security assessments across a broad variety of sectors in the country. And certainly, yeah, from a political perspective, we're tracking a wide variety of risks or aspects that allow us then to make judgements and forward- looking assessments as to how we think situations like the upcoming election are going to play out. We were able to draw on lengthy analysis or assessments that have been done prior in terms of how the long- running administrations under Chávez and then Maduro have handled elections in the past, how they have handled the spectrum of trying to at least give the visage of a free and fair election. While, at the same time, maintaining strict control over the state, really creating very few opportunities for the opposition to actually gain any kind of meaningful change, et cetera. So, we were able to pull on a number of levers in that regard, and it's allowed us to, yeah, produce assessments, forward- looking analysis of what we think is going to occur in the election. Analyzing the variety of manoeuvres and measures that the Maduro Administration has put into place to try and, if not, rig, then at least control as much as possible what is feasible with the elections and the electoral process, and then what we think is going to happen as a consequence of that in the coming weeks and months.

Harry Kemsley: We'll come to what do we think is going to happen next in just a second. Sean, I'll come back to you in just a second. But just back to you for a second, Estefania. So, you're looking at a situation that's remote to you by a considerable distance, and you've got a fairly closed environment because of the control over the media. As Matt's just said, there's likely to be a lot of deliberate disinformation product system. What kind of sources, however, do you use? Specifically, what kind of platforms can you get to that give you a sense of what might be going on?

Estefania Dominguez: Well, there are many civil society organizations that have been continuously published many of the reports of violence, electoral violence, for instance. And these civil society organizations have also been able to publish their reports in other platforms that are not only based in Venezuela, trying to circumvent the blockades. But can I also indicate that an organization is uncomfortable to Maduro and Maduristas? It's like every single news outlet that has been censored by the government. So, that is a good sign, that you want to look at what they have been publishing in order to get into that. Usually, the way that they're censored is temporarily, so we can actually have access to that. But the way to do it is that you have to make sure that you're using VPNs to connect to friendly nations' connections. For instance, we have been using Mexico to access, the VPN connected to Mexico, to access information about Venezuela on these platforms. Because open source, one of the thing is that you have to know where to look for the information. And when looking for information, you also have to make sure that you have the technical knowledge to find this information, given how the internet works and how the search engines operate. So, using that in our advantage to look for this information and verify it properly, of course, to make sure that the information is coherent and there are other international organizations backing the evidence. And yes, it takes lots of energy to cover a country like Venezuela because of this, but it's necessary in the process of verifying every single piece of information.

Harry Kemsley: Understood. Well, I'll come back to you both, Estefania and Matt, in a second in terms of where you think this weekend might go in terms of outcome. But Sean, just before I do that, Sean, your thoughts?

Sean Corbett: Yeah. There's a lot of echoes there of stuff that we've done before in terms of looking at closed societies like Iran and North Korea. So, I absolutely agree with everything that was said there in terms of, you've got to look at the propaganda for what it is. It's propaganda, but what you say is just as important, or what you don't say is just as important. That's what it is. So, what's propaganda? What's disinformation? But I think what's different in Venezuela is in a sort of attempt to placate the US in particular, the international community, and pretend that they are at least a democratic state. Though some of the authorities were just slightly eased. Of course, once that happens, you're in. There will be stray vaults and there will be ways, exactly as Estefania has described, of using social media. Because they will get out by very much OSINT techniques. VPNs is one of them, et cetera. There are a lot of NGOs, non- governmental organizations, that are interested. And it is slightly open country compared to the likes of North Korea and Iran, so that gives us a really good chance. And then, of course, context is everything. So, understanding the underlying principles of it all, our experts can just go, " Yeah. Okay, that's slightly different, and the reason for it is this." So, it gives us a better chance.

Harry Kemsley: Okay. Does sound like you're adding, as always, Sean, that sense of tradecraft by judgment and experience. We can see what looks normal, we can sense what's starting to feel abnormal. And through that, we can start to read accordingly what we're actually receiving in terms of mis or disinformation. So, Estefania, here we go. It's now Sunday evening, Monday morning, and the weekend has passed. What do we think we're going to be seeing by the early part of next week in terms of outcomes for this? Is it going to be legitimate? Is it going to be any big change? What's your thoughts?

Estefania Dominguez: Yeah, Maduro is very likely to win the election. And we think so because we have to look at how, as Matt said, how in the previous year or the previous months, these institutions have been modified in order to allow this to win. Because it's not necessarily that we need to look at the exact same voting day to see if the elections have been... If they're fraudulent or not. That is irrelevant when you have a country that has the capacity, or an executive power to have the capacity to control all the institutions and make all the modifications that allow this El Oficialismo to win again. So, it is very likely that we will see Maduro winning. If these were free and fair elections, that would be, of course, a more tricky thing to respond to. Very unlikely.

Harry Kemsley: How do we think the country of Venezuela, the population, will respond to this?

Estefania Dominguez: There might be some protests, but I don't think we would see the same level of violence that Venezuela faced during 2017. Because we don't have the same factors that could aggravate any potential political violence. But definitely, we will see some protests and some level of violence, but the week after that, at least for a while. Because in 2025, we will have the parliamentary elections. That would be another factor, but that, it's a little bit more into the future. But this could actually be what triggers some potential further violence in the 2025.

Harry Kemsley: So, this is not the end of the road. But Matt, just give me a sense of what the... Before I come back to you, Sean, what do you think the regional impact of this election outcome will be? What are the neighboring nations, as well as Venezuela, but what's going on in this part of the world from your perspective as a result of this weekend's outcome?

Matt Henman: Well, Sean mentioned earlier, obviously, the extensive energy reserves that Venezuela have. Obviously, it's only a few months back at the, I think, end of 2023 that the US took the steps to slowly lift the sanctions that they'd put on oil and gas from Venezuela in return for trying to, or getting a commitment from Maduro to commit holding free and fair elections. Obviously, then, in April, when it became very clear that he had no intention of doing so, those sanctions were put back in place. So, there's a real, and again, as Sean mentioned at the start, a real geopolitical, I guess, significance to this. With the war in Ukraine and the crunch that's being put on energy reserves, the US has perhaps reluctantly accepted that Venezuela is a much more, or is an increasingly significant partner from an energy perspective, and is making attempts to engage and find ways to open up those markets to an extent. But I think that has been probably exploited by Maduro. He has used those in- treaties for his own political gain. But then, tracking the broader situation here, we're looking fairly extensively, again, at the end of 2023 at the situation between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana in terms of the ongoing dispute over the Essequibo region. Again, forgive my poor pronunciation, I'm sure I massacred that. But the political situation and the stability of the Maduro Administration is one that will have a broader impact in terms of how that state looks to project its power regionally. As we assessed at the time, the dispute with Essequibo is very much a diversionary matter. And again, step in to correct me, Estefania, as you're the expert, but it's the sort of thing that can be used to distract a disquiet among the population, to distract from repression authoritarianism: the measures being taken by Maduro and the administration to realistically crush the prospect of democratic change occurring in the country. So, how this election plays out, yeah, is going to have an impact not just in Venezuela itself, but in terms of border regional and international security as well. For sure.

Harry Kemsley: All right. Well, I'll come back to you in just a second, Matt, and then on to you, Estefania, in terms of, what are the open sources, the indicators within the open- source environment you're going to start looking at to either assess the regional disquiet or, indeed, the internal? What are the kind of indicators you'll be looking for from open sources? I'll come back to that for you, Matt and Estefania, in a second. But Sean, what about your perspective? What are you thinking as you're looking at this regional issue?

Sean Corbett: So, the first thing I want to say is, congratulations to Estefania for actually making the call. And this is really important because the IC in my vine, or through my eyes, has got far too cautious now in its assessments. It makes comfortable assessments, because there is this fear, a cultural institution getting it wrong. Now, my view is, and shared by some other fairly senior people, that getting it wrong is part and parcel of what you do. That's not to say that you intend to get it wrong, but you've got to make that judgment call. And as long as you make it, again, so this is where the tradecraft really comes in here, as long as you make it against assumptions, valid assumptions that you've articulated, against weight of evidence that you've also articulated, you've laid your argument about actually, it doesn't always matter whether you are wrong or right, as long as you've got those arguments and you put the alternative hypothesis in there. Because it's a process and a journey that helps decision- makers make their decisions. So, well done on that one. I would agree that despite... I have been looking at polling, actually. There's some pretty significant polling that says the opposition will win comfortably or should do, and we all know the weaknesses with polling data. But I think in this case, it is so persuasive that it's actually there. But there's no question, Maduro will somehow, or other, make it so that he wins. Or, " There's some irregularities and there might be martial law because of that. Therefore, I'm going to make it happen." That's the short term. Where I potentially slightly disagree with the assessment, I think that, and you've got to be cautious here because we've seen it around, we've seen it in other places where wishful thinking is not a valid course of action. And we think, " Right, popular unrest. Off it goes." I think in 2017, I was actually looking at some commercial satellite imagery of the hordes on the... There's a border breach, quite a famous border... Anyway, we won't go into that, but thinking that could be the tipping point. It would be easy to think that, because there are something like 80% of those polls said they wanted change. What that change was, I don't know. So, this will depend on how much grip he's got of the judiciary, local government, military, et cetera, et cetera. As to whether that will just fizzle out, or whether it's going to be short term, then it's back to as it was. In terms of the international implications, I think exactly as I said, it's no accident that there was a Russian warship, the Gorshkov I think it was, that visited in late June. Messaging basically saying, " Look, we're your mates, we're here to support you. Just keep supporting us." Now, that will be not... Well, I know that the US weren't very happy about it. But of course, they weren't. But do you sacrifice stability for the great game, if you like? Big question. Big question on that one. I don't know. So, I think that the US will, and allies, it's not just about the US, of course, will very reluctantly take that, will try and inculcate reform. But how far it gets, I really don't know. So, I think it's almost back to where we were. But there is a chance, however great or however small, that there will be a tipping point. And if the military have had enough and if the population really thinks, " Look, this has been going on too long, the economy's smashed," then there's a potential longer- term implication.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Well, let's pick up that thread then, because that segues quite nicely into what I want to do anyway. So, Matt, we often talk about risk factors around a country's stability and its future. Sean's just touched on a few points there that might be triggers. Let's go back to that question I posed before Sean spoke about, what are we going to look at that might give us a sense of how this region is going to react and where the instability might arise if it does? And then, Estefania, as I said, I'll come back to you to look at that more specifically inside the country. So, Matt, let's go with you first.

Matt Henman: I think just to come back onto Sean's point, I think an important thing to bear in mind here. When we mentioned that the polling has the opposition way out in front and when we flag you there, while our assessment is that Maduro is almost certain to be victorious, I think a key thing to have in mind and a way to almost temper people's expectations of how the situation may develop is that, even if the opposition were to win, that isn't the death knell for Chavismo and the system that has been in place in Venezuela for more than two decades now. The Maduristas, the Chavistas still control all of the other levers of state. And all that would happen, I think, where you would have a situation of political gridlock, essentially, it would be extremely difficult for the opposition, even if they won the presidency, to enact significant, lasting change in Venezuela. Again, Estefania, jump in and correct me if I'm wrong on that one, but I think it's worth tempering expectations of what could potentially be achieved, even if the opposition were to win the presidency. As I say, it would set the scene for more lawful, more legal and judicial maneuvering of the type that the administration has been implementing over the past five, 10 years as a way to de- fang the opposition, to outmaneuver them, to prevent them from achieving political change through lawful, legitimate means.

Harry Kemsley: Okay. All right. So, Estefania, the ball falls into your corner of the court now. What are you going to be looking for, for any signs of the change that apparently people want or, indeed, no change? What are the things that you will use as indicators of the likely future, long, medium, or short term?

Estefania Dominguez: All right. So, throughout this year, we have not only covered Venezuela's elections, we have also covered Guatemala and El Salvador. And the methodology has been practically the same, which is, looking at how the institutions of the state have experienced any sort of recent changes of how, or how these institutions have been reacting to certain events. And if they react in favor of the president or the people in power, or against them. And it's in the struggle between these institutions, which is the healthy checks and balances, where we notice if there are patterns of things that have been changing, or have been modified in order to give more probability for the leader to win any reelection. So, in the case of Venezuela, what we focused on is on how the Oficialismo has been able to mold the pool of candidates. And we also took a look at how the institutional incompetence have been used in favor of Oficialismo for favorable results, the lack of international oversight, and the potential threat of direct violence. So, these are the elements that give us some indication of how things will turn out. Because these are slow processes, and it takes many months and even years to get to this point. So, when molding the pool of candidates, what we saw during the past year, in the past 12 months, is how all those who were originally proposed to become the candidates of the opposition, like María Corina Machado, they were slammed with inabilitation, political inabilitation. So, they were kicked out of the race slowly through many processes that were used by the Oficialismo to take them out of the race. So, María Corina Machado, for instance, she won the primaries with a pretty decent amount of votes, by a very decent amount of people who voted in her favor. And then, immediately, she was inabilitated politically. She was out of the race. There's also the way that the Oficialismo has been slowly taking control of smaller political parties that have been of the opposition. Now, they slowly became part of the Oficialismo, and these are called Alacranes. They call it in Venezuela Alacranes, these political parties that used to be opposition and now they're not. They are more in favor of Oficialismo.

Harry Kemsley: And is there any indication as to why they've changed their alliance in that way? Is that likely to be from oppression or from some other means?

Estefania Dominguez: It's the way that the Supreme Justice Tribunal basically removed the power of the leadership of the party, of the political party, and given it to someone else who is in favor of Oficialismo.

Harry Kemsley: Oh, I see.

Estefania Dominguez: So, it's in a slowly progressive manner that they take control of this political power. So, Maduro, in these presidential elections, the way that presidents are voted is through a direct vote. And the person who gets the majority, the highest number of votes, wins the election. So, what Maduro actually needs is to have a huge pool of candidates in order to have the vote of the opposition spread in many candidates. So, he has a better chance of getting the majority of votes. And that's also in the process of molding the candidates pool, right?

Harry Kemsley: Right.

Estefania Dominguez: And we have 7. 7 million Venezuelans who have fled the country throughout this crisis, and around 5 million of them, they could potentially vote for these elections. But the incapacity of the National Electoral Commission to actually register all of them, at the end, it turned out that over 100, 000 outside Venezuela will be able to vote. From 5. 5 million to 100,000.

Harry Kemsley: 100,000 out of five-and-a-half million?

Estefania Dominguez: Around, yeah. So, that's another thing to consider in how these things are molded to favor Maduro at the end of the day. Then, we have the lack of international oversight. Because in Latin America, we usually have the Electoral Observation Mission by the Organization of American States. Usually, that's the one who accompanies all the elections. And the oversight is important because what they do is basically they gather sufficient data to say if there was violence during the voting day, if it was violence before and after. So, the reports are really-

Harry Kemsley: Essentially, they are legitimizing, to some extent, the result. They're telling us that this was done in an appropriate way.

Estefania Dominguez: Right. Or they just provide sufficient information to make further assessments. Like, what happened that day and the level of violence that it got? And we don't have that. For the Venezuelan election, what we will see is only a panel of experts for the UN will be present, and they won't publish the report. This report will go straight to the secretary general. And then, finally, we have the direct threat of violence, which is something that is usually... It is presented through the Colectivos. They're called Colectivos, which is a paramilitary force created by Chávez to avoid a coup d'état. So, these Colectivos are often used in protest or before elections, or during the candidates' rally, to create violence. So, people don't go out to vote, or that people don't go to these candidates' political rallies. And all of these elements gives us the indications that these elections have been tied in favor of Maduro, because he has made all the decisions beforehand to secure that. Throughout the whole process, he will have a better chance of winning the election than the opposition.

Harry Kemsley: Understood. It sounds to me, Sean, actually, to create that much engineering of an electoral result is actually quite a complicated thing. You've actually got to play with the levers of government, and then manipulate them and control them. That's not a nontrivial thing to do. And by the way, then to stand in front of the international audience with a straight face and say, " That was an entirely fair election that I've seen vote me back in." That's quite an amazing feat of engineering, I'll call it that, and then front, just to stand in front of the community and say that.

Sean Corbett: Absolutely. That strategy to task that is. Now, A, they've been doing it for a long time, so they do have all those levers. But you've got to take a very joined- up approach, right from the strategic down to the sub- tactical, and have people to do your bidding. So, some of the tactical things, for instance, moving polling stations around just before, renaming schools so that people don't know actually where the polling station is. And then, you've got that thinly rare veiled threat of, " Well, if you don't vote for us, then clearly, we're going into civil war." But actually, I think it's more fundamental than that. I don't think he cares. I think because now this is back to this international thing, because now Russia will say anything they want because it doesn't matter, because they think, " Well, we can say what we like," and as long as we're saying the right things, we just don't need to do those. And then, you look at North Korea and all the others. Venezuela, they're playing the same book. They're from the same playbook, and they inaudible exactly what they're doing. At the end of the day, we could talk about the UN another time, but what levers does the UN actually have to make a lot of difference? Discuss for another day.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, another day. All right. Well, I'm really keen to revisit this conversation, Estefania and Matt. I'd like to come back and look at this conversation in a period of weeks time, to actually plot what you've seen through the weekend that we've just talked about, a result that I think, you're right, is almost certainly to be the result. The extent to which the nation responds, negatively or passively, to this result, and then how that starts to permeate out into the territory within which Venezuela's found, but also perhaps more internationally. So, if I may, let me ask you to keep track, as you will do anyway for your day- to- day work, but keep track of some of those things that you found particularly useful in terms of tracking this domino effect that may come out of it, both nationally and internationally. And let me finish, as I will do in every of these podcasts, to ask you both to think of, what's the one thing you'd like the audience to know about this conversation that you should make sure they take away? I'll come to you, Estefania, first, and Matt, second. And Sean, I'm going to ask you to go last, but I'd like you, Sean, in your takeaway to focus on the one thing we haven't spoken about very much today, well, not as much as usual anyway, which is, the tradecraft aspect of it. What are you looking at from a strategic tradecraft practitioner that will be of importance to you in a situation like this? And after all that, I'll give you my takeaway right at the end. So, Estefania, what would be the one thing you'd want the audience to take away from this conversation, given the imminent elections in Venezuela?

Estefania Dominguez: I think that looking at how the three different powers of the state of a democracy play before elections are very telling of how these things will happen. So, I think that's the most important thing to keep an eye on.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah, I agree. Actually, that was going to be mine, so I've now got less than 30 seconds to come up with my own alternative. Matt, go ahead.

Matt Henman: I would just flag that oftentimes a lot of the ways that, certainly in the West, the way that we understand the situation in Venezuela could be quite one dimensional, quite reductive. And I think as we've discussed, it's not the conventional authoritarian dictatorship that maybe it's always portrayed. It is a highly sophisticated and legal and judicial process through which this administration is sustaining itself. And I think that we would do well to understand better, I think, the various mechanisms and measures that have been put in place for not just this election, but will continue to have a lasting impact on the way that the political situation will develop in Venezuela. As with all things intelligence, the better we understand the situation on the ground, the measures and strategies that these administrations utilize, the better we can react and adjust and make assessments as to how the situation is going to develop.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. Being able to detect that playbook, as you say. And by the way, that was going to be my alternative to what Estefania said, so I've now got even less time to come up with mine. But I think I've thought of one. But no, I think that's right. I think the idea that we can actually map this set of activities, as Estefania has described, and then look for that playbook being rolled out, gives us early indications of the likely outcomes for other countries. Sean?

Sean Corbett: I've got to go back to the importance of actually making a well- founded call, and being able to articulate why you've made that and how you've made it. So, the tradecraft is absolutely fundamental. What's your confidence levels, and where are they? I was doing research for this podcast and obviously, just out of interest, there's a lot of narrative out there and there's a lot of think tanks. But they're all heading their... Well, not all of them, but most of them are really hedging their bets. " Well, it could be this, it could be that." But very few of them are giving a weighting, why this is more likely than that. Now, as long as you articulate it, at the end of the day, what are we trying to do? We're trying to influence decision- making and strategy and all the rest of the things. So, as long as you've got all of the factors that you need to look at, you are looking at all of the relevant data and not more than, not less. Then, you make a weighting, you make a judgment, and articulating that judgment, then you're good to go. Because a confident decision- maker that is used to using their intelligence will go, " Yeah, I get that. I get these are the inputs. These are, I think, something else because of..." Or if, and I don't think we will, but if we do get this wrong, we go back and saying, "Okay, they got that wrong, but actually it was still a really good assessment, and we got the why it was wrong." So, it'd be really good. I'll be looking forward to Monday morning now quite a lot. But if we have made an error of assessment, then it'd be really interesting to go back and say, " Okay, where, why, and how do we get that wrong?" And it's absolutely nothing to be worried about at all, or concerned about. Obviously, we don't want to be wrong all the time, but every now and again, it's going to happen. So, you've got to have the confidence to call it.

Harry Kemsley: Yeah. So, the takeaway I'm going to take from this is, to go back to something somebody much, much wiser than me once said, which is, " The purpose of intelligence is to reduce the uncertainty, it's not to necessarily give the perfect answer," as Sean has just articulated. And I think both you, Estefania, and Matt, have underscored in your own way. I think the understanding of the context, the circumstances, the factors in play, the key stakeholders, et cetera, their behaviors, how they might be mapping them together, an understanding of that gives me a level of certainty about what's going on that is dependent on my judgment and my expertise and my own analysis. Reducing the uncertainty is really the key part that we play in the intelligence world. So, for me, I think it's, to your point, Sean, that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong. Of course, ultimately, the prediction is either correct or incorrect. It's about reducing the uncertainty in those that need to understand the likely outcome to prepare for it. Anticipating what might go wrong comes from an understanding of the context, et cetera. So, that's the bit that I want to take away from this. So, let me pause the conversation, rather than conclude it, by saying, Estefania, thank you very much for your expertise and the very, very helpful context you gave us right at the beginning. Matt, thank you as well for your more general insights around this particular region that you are responsible for in the work that you do. And standby for an invite, I suspect. Well, what do you think, Estefania? How far in the future should we look before we get you back? Is this going to be days to weeks, or should we leave in a month or two?

Estefania Dominguez: I think it's going to be until the parliamentary elections, to be fair, in one year.

Harry Kemsley: Well, I'm not going to let you off the hook quite that much. So, what we'll do is, we'll do an interim look as the next step in this conversation in a period of time yet to be agreed. So, TBC, but part two's following. Thank you, too, listener, for your patience and listening to this conversation. What I would ask you to do as listeners is, as a number of people as you are starting to do, is give us your thoughts. Let us know what you'd like to know more of. If there's questions for this podcast, let us know. We'll get them to Estefania and Matt, and they'll give us answers. Please, do get engaged. Thank you for your time, and thank you for your listening. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us this week on the World of Intelligence. Make sure to visit our website, janes. com/ podcast, where you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts, so you'll never miss an episode.