Venezuela’s opposition courts Spain’s far-right: neoliberal convergence vs. social fractures in transatlantic politics

Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities in Venezuela’s mining regions have long resisted the extractivist policies that both Maduro’s government and Machado’s opposition endorse, framing resource exploitation as a continuation of colonial violence. Their struggles are erased in elite political narratives, which reduce complex socio-economic conflicts to simplistic left-right binaries. The transnational alignment of Spanish far-right and Venezuelan opposition elites further marginalizes these communities, whose land rights are collateral damage in the pursuit of neoliberal 'modernization.'

The alliance between Venezuela’s opposition and Spain’s far-right echoes Cold War-era transatlantic anti-communist networks, where authoritarian regimes and neoliberal technocrats collaborated to suppress leftist movements. Spain’s Vox party draws on Francoist nostalgia to justify its economic nationalism, while Machado’s opposition invokes 1990s neoliberal reforms that deepened inequality. Both cases reveal how historical traumas—Spain’s civil war and Venezuela’s Caracazo—are weaponized to justify present-day austerity and repression.

In Latin America, opposition alliances with foreign powers are often framed through the lens of sovereignty, but this overlooks how neoliberal policies—whether imposed by the IMF or embraced by domestic elites—disproportionately harm marginalised groups. In Spain, the far-right’s courtship of Venezuelan opposition figures reflects a broader strategy to rebrand authoritarianism as 'economic pragmatism,' echoing historical patterns where fascist regimes justified repression through appeals to stability and growth. Both contexts reveal how economic dogma trumps social justice when elites perceive a threat to their privileges.

Empirical studies on neoliberal policy convergence show that austerity and deregulation reduce state capacity to address inequality, exacerbating social fractures that far-right parties exploit for electoral gain. Research on transnational elite networks demonstrates how policy diffusion occurs through informal channels like think tanks and lobbying groups, bypassing democratic processes. The case of Venezuela and Spain illustrates how economic shocks—such as oil price collapses or EU austerity—create fertile ground for authoritarian populism, regardless of ideological labels.

Artistic movements in both countries have critiqued the dehumanizing effects of neoliberalism, from Venezuela’s *colectivos* using muralism to challenge state propaganda to Spain’s *indignados* movement linking economic precarity to spiritual emptiness. Indigenous cosmologies in the Amazon and Andes frame resource extraction as a violation of sacred land, offering an alternative to the commodification of nature central to both Maduro’s and Machado’s economic visions. These perspectives are systematically excluded from elite political narratives, which prioritize material metrics over communal well-being.

If current trends continue, the transnational alliance of neoliberal elites could lead to a 'managed democracy' model, where authoritarian governance is justified by economic necessity and social unrest is met with repression. Scenario planning suggests that grassroots movements linking anti-extractivist struggles in Venezuela with housing rights movements in Spain could disrupt this trajectory, but only if they overcome language barriers and build transnational solidarity networks. The rise of AI-driven surveillance in both countries further threatens democratic resilience, as elites use data to predict and preempt dissent.

Women, Afro-Venezuelans, and indigenous leaders in mining regions face triple marginalisation: their lands are targeted for extraction, their political agency is dismissed as 'populist,' and their economic alternatives are excluded from elite policy debates. In Spain, migrant workers and precarious youth are scapegoated by the far-right, while their labor fuels the very economies these parties claim to protect. The opposition’s courtship of Vox ignores these communities entirely, revealing how neoliberal and authoritarian projects converge in their disregard for the most vulnerable.