Their ac­cord was part of a par­tial agree­ment that is ex­pect­ed to trig­ger some re­lief from eco­nom­ic sanc­tions im­posed by the U.S. gov­ern­ment on Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro’s ad­min­is­tra­tion. It came just five days be­fore the op­po­si­tion holds a pri­ma­ry to pick its can­di­date for the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

The sign­ing of the agree­ment demon­strat­ed no­table progress in a ne­go­ti­a­tion process marked by fits and starts over the past two years, but it al­so showed how far apart the two sides re­main on what con­sti­tutes fair elec­toral con­di­tions.

Two pro­vi­sions of the agree­ment could af­fect the gov­ern­ment’s tac­tic of ban­ning some of its loud­est crit­ics from seek­ing of­fice, in­clud­ing the fron­trun­ner in Sun­day’s pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry. Yet nei­ther pro­vi­sion spells out a clear path for a can­di­date to over­come a ban.

The gov­ern­ment’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the op­po­si­tion’s del­e­gates al­so agreed to “pro­mote” with elec­toral au­thor­i­ties var­i­ous mea­sures to up­date the coun­try’s vot­ing rolls, in­clud­ing es­tab­lish­ing vot­er reg­is­tra­tion cen­tres and or­ga­niz­ing reg­is­tra­tion cam­paigns.

Ge­off Ram­sey, a se­nior an­a­lyst on Venezuela at the At­lantic Coun­cil think tank, said Tues­day’s agree­ment “forces the regime to crack open a win­dow,” but leaves up to the op­po­si­tion “to pry that win­dow all the way open” with the as­sis­tance of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

Maduro’s gov­ern­ment and the Uni­tary Plat­form, the fac­tion of the op­po­si­tion backed by the U.S., be­gan the cur­rent ne­go­ti­a­tion process in 2021 in Mex­i­co with the me­di­a­tion of Nor­we­gian diplo­mats. But the di­a­logue stalled at var­i­ous points.

From the start, Maduro de­mand­ed that the U.S. drop eco­nom­ic sanc­tions and un­freeze Venezue­lan funds held over­seas. The op­po­si­tion sought guar­an­tees for the elec­tion to avoid con­di­tions in pre­vi­ous votes that were wide­ly con­sid­ered to fa­vor pro-gov­ern­ment can­di­dates.

The deals signed Tues­day will re­sult in re­lief from U.S. en­er­gy sanc­tions on Maduro’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, ac­cord­ing to a per­son fa­mil­iar with the out­line of deal. If Maduro doesn’t live up to his end of the bar­gain, the sanc­tions will be im­posed again, ac­cord­ing to the per­son, who in­sist­ed on not be­ing quot­ed by name as a con­di­tion to dis­cuss the agree­ment.

“I can say that these agree­ments will be very ben­e­fi­cial for peace,” Maduro said Mon­day dur­ing his week­ly TV show. “They will be very ben­e­fi­cial for the up­com­ing elec­tions be­cause we will sim­ply ac­ti­vate and re­ac­ti­vate the elec­toral guar­an­tees pro­vid­ed by our con­sti­tu­tion, our laws, our Na­tion­al Elec­toral Coun­cil.”

Elec­tion cam­paigns in Venezuela typ­i­cal­ly in­volve hand­outs of free food and oth­er goods on be­half of the gov­ern­ing par­ty’s can­di­dates, who al­so get fa­vor­able state me­dia cov­er­age. The gov­ern­ment al­so side­lines ad­ver­saries by ban­ning them from pub­lic of­fice, and not just in pres­i­den­tial con­tests.

One of the agree­ments signed Tues­day calls for al­low­ing all can­di­dates ac­cess to me­dia out­lets. But it left open to in­ter­pre­ta­tion whether banned can­di­dates can run for of­fice.

A pro­vi­sion of the agree­ment states the par­ties will “rec­og­nize and re­spect the right of each po­lit­i­cal ac­tor to se­lect” a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date “freely and in ac­cor­dance with their in­ter­nal mech­a­nisms” so long as they take fol­low the law and the con­sti­tu­tion.

An­oth­er pro­vi­sion calls on both sides to “pro­mote the au­tho­riza­tion of all pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and po­lit­i­cal par­ties” to par­tic­i­pate as long as they com­ply with the law.

Af­ter the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Bar­ba­dos, Ger­ar­do Blyde, who led the op­po­si­tion’s ne­go­tia­tors, said the pro­vi­sions in­clude “a route” for af­fect­ed can­di­dates and po­lit­i­cal par­ties “to re­gain their rights quick­ly.”

Yet Jorge Ro­driguez, Maduro’s top ne­go­tia­tor and head of Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly, in­sist­ed no can­di­date sub­ject to a ban, re­gard­less of the gov­ern­ment en­ti­ty that is­sued it, can run for of­fice.

“If you com­mit­ted a crime and were sen­tenced for that crime, you can­not be a can­di­date,” Ro­driguez said. “And if you re­ceived an ad­min­is­tra­tive dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion from the cor­re­spond­ing en­ti­ty ... then, you can­not be a can­di­date ei­ther.”

Maria Co­ri­na Macha­do, the favourite to win the op­po­si­tion’s pri­ma­ry, re­ceived a ban just three days af­ter she en­tered the race. It al­leges fraud and tax vi­o­la­tions and ac­cus­es her of seek­ing the eco­nom­ic sanc­tions the U.S. im­posed on Venezuela.

Bans are al­so ap­plied retroac­tive­ly, such as in 2021 when an op­po­si­tion gu­ber­na­to­r­i­al can­di­date was dis­qual­i­fied af­ter re­sults showed he was ahead of a sib­ling of the late Pres­i­dent Hugo Chávez.

“The op­po­si­tion will have to come to­geth­er around the win­ning can­di­date af­ter the pri­ma­ry, but al­so be pre­pared for the like­ly pos­si­bil­i­ty that the gov­ern­ment will ve­to that can­di­date,” Ram­sey said, adding that it bet­ter “be ready for a Plan B.”

The po­lit­i­cal, so­cial and eco­nom­ic cri­sis that has come to de­fine Venezuela be­gan a decade ago as a re­sult of a glob­al drop in the price of oil, mis­man­age­ment by the self-pro­claimed so­cial­ist ad­min­is­tra­tion and gov­ern­ment re­pres­sion of its op­po­nents. A brief pe­ri­od of rel­a­tive eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty has again been shak­en by jump­ing food prices, busi­ness clo­sures and an­oth­er wave of em­i­gra­tion.

The par­ties al­so agreed Tues­day to in­vite elec­toral ob­servers from the Eu­ro­pean Union, Unit­ed Na­tions, U.S.-based Carter Cen­ter and oth­er or­ga­ni­za­tions.

U.S., EU, Cana­da and U.K. of­fi­cials in a joint state­ment said Tues­day’s agree­ment is a nec­es­sary step in the “restora­tion of democ­ra­cy in Venezuela.” It al­so called “for the un­con­di­tion­al re­lease of all those un­just­ly de­tained, the in­de­pen­dence of the elec­toral process and ju­di­cial in­sti­tu­tions, free­dom of ex­pres­sion in­clud­ing for mem­bers of the press, and re­spect for hu­man and po­lit­i­cal rights.”

When the sides last met pub­licly, in No­vem­ber, they agreed to cre­ate a U.N.-man­aged fund to fi­nance health, food and ed­u­ca­tion pro­grams for the poor while the U.S. gov­ern­ment agreed to al­low oil gi­ant Chevron to pump Venezue­lan oil. But the fund, which was meant to hold bil­lions in frozen as­sets, is yet to fun­nel mon­ey to pro­grams.

Dag Ny­lan­der, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Nor­we­gian gov­ern­ment, said there is still a long way to go to over­come po­lar­iza­tion and con­fronta­tion, but the lat­est step is the start­ing point to­ward es­tab­lish­ing “clear rules of po­lit­i­cal and so­cial co­ex­is­tence in Venezuela.” —CARA­CAS, Venezuela (AP)

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Sto­ry by REGI­NA GAR­CIA CANO | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Joshua Good­man in New York con­tributed to this re­port.