• What next for #Venezuela?
    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/262581-what-next-for-venezuela

    So the Venezuelan political system, with all its flaws, is much more democratic than the conventional wisdom has maintained. Now, what about the future? If the opposition gets a two-thirds majority of seats (112 or more), it would have important powers, such as the ability to remove Supreme Court judges, censure the vice president and call an assembly to propose changes to the constitution.

    However, the opposition has more than 20 political parties and many divisions. It is possible that the government will be able to get some opposition legislators to vote with it in the National Assembly, so that it can continue governing until the next presidential election in 2018.

    If that is the case, from the government’s standpoint, the election will not have changed much. The key issue for its continued political survival will still be the economy. There is triple-digit inflation, widespread shortages of consumer goods, a recession, low oil prices, non-working price controls and a dysfunctional exchange rate system that is at the heart of the country’s economic mess. This is obviously why the government lost the National Assembly. So, as before the election, if the government does not fix this mess, the Chavistas will lose power; if they do fix it, they will probably do OK.

    Opposition leaders will still face the same choice they have faced for the past 16 years: Do they want to participate in the political system, or simply vanquish their enemies, the Chavistas? From 1999 to 2003, they had what opposition leader Teodoro Petkoff called a “strategy of military takeover,” including the 2002 U.S.-backed military coup and the 2002–2003 oil strike. But in the past decade, they have repeatedly gone back and forth between insurrectionary and electoral strategies. In 2013, they lost the presidential elections and refused the accept the results, taking to the streets with violent demonstrations; and last year, a part of the opposition led by Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado also opted for violent street demonstrations aimed at “La Salida” — or “the exit” — of the government.

    The opposition’s victory could give the more moderate elements a leg up on their extremist partners to move the country toward a more normal, less polarized political process. The government now clearly has a new incentive to do the same. That would certainly be the best for the country, which faces serious challenges ahead in fixing the economy.