As Venezuela faces a possible bond default and the economy sinks further into depression, one might think the opposition would be building a powerful challenge to the ruling socialists in presidential elections expected next year.
Instead, opponents are demoralized and in disarray. The 11-party coalition is deeply divided this week after four governors-elect from the Democratic Action party recognized the authority of President Nicolas Maduro’s repressive regime, infuriating allies who said the Oct. 15 regional elections were irretrievably tainted.
The internecine fight comes as the coalition is at its lowest ebb in years. Maduro has used control over institutions and public money to stymie them just three months after street protests threatened his presidency. He has changed election rules, boosted his supporters on state television -- and systematically jailed dissidents. Now, opponents must decide whether to seek accommodation or find a new way to resist.
“I find it inappropriate and inconvenient that in the middle of this political crisis, we start shooting at each other,” Henry Ramos Allup, head of Democratic Action, said Tuesday.
On Monday, the winning candidates from Allup’s party, which ruled Venezuela on and off for decades, agreed to be sworn in by Maduro’s all-powerful constituent assembly. The gesture of submission prompted fury from other members of the opposition coalition.
“As long as Mr. Ramos Allup is in the unity movement, I won’t remain at the table,” former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski said in a news conference Tuesday. “What we saw yesterday has no justification. Democratic Action is a historic party, but I ask its members, how do you feel? Are you going to continue to support it?”
Many opposition members said the government stole the elections after 18 of 23 states went to Maduro loyalists despite opinion surveys that had predicted a coalition landslide. Polls stayed open hours after scheduled closings after the government moved voting stations at the last minute and kept failed primary candidates on the ballot. The opposition seemed unprepared for the results, failing to convey a unified response until late the next day.
On Tuesday, the discombobulation persisted: Three opposition politicians held separate or overlapping press conferences in the span of hours, all with different calls to action.
Political analyst Edgard Gutierrez said that Maduro’s opponents are at a crossroads.
“This is the end of the opposition as we know it,” he said. “We have months of crisis, readjustment, accusations and reinvention coming up. The opposition’s crisis will take place in the middle of a bitter debate of whether to participate or not in upcoming elections.”
With the government controlling the electoral process and the opposition lacking leverage, the path to regime change is increasingly uncertain, Eurasia Group analysts including Risa Grais-Targow wrote in a note today. Maduro has already hinted he’d like to accelerate the electoral cycle, including municipal votes, to capitalize on the situation, they wrote.
Maduro’s regime has presided over widespread hunger, inflation set to reach more than 2,000 percent and residents fleeing by the thousands. sanctions and demonstrations have so far failed to provide a way out. On top of that, the government is behind on its debt and faces more than $2 billion in bond payments the coming weeks.
However, the president said Tuesday that the nation is making a fresh start.
“I met with the opposition’s governors today, it was a cordial and positive meeting,” Maduro said on state television. “I have told the opposition governors that they can count on all my support for their states. A new era of coexistence has begun.
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