Despite a string of deaths and fierce clashes with riot police, Venezuela’s opposition are trying to ramp up the street pressure on the beleaguered government of President Nicolas Maduro.
Mass demonstrations this week are a sign of frustration at the president’s increasingly authoritarian rule, but with the security forces still loyal to the socialist president, analysts say the best long-term hope for those who seek change is likely to remain the ballot box.
For the second day in a row on Thursday, central Caracas was filled with clouds of tear gas as protesters, including several prominent legislators, confronted security forces.
Illustration: Yusha
This followed “the mother of all marches,” which drew hundreds of thousands to anti-government rallies across the nation on Wednesday. Simultaneous demonstrations by government supporters led to violence in several cities.
In several cases, it was lethal. In Miranda, a national guardsman was killed by a sniper, while in San Cristobal, a university student was chased down and executed. In Caracas, an 18-year-old bystander was shot in the head by armed government supporters as he set off to play soccer. Clashes between the two sides earlier this month resulted in the death of at least five others.
This is the bloodiest phase of Venezuelan politics since 46 people died in 2014, but the energized opposition are in no mood to step back from the confrontation, which allows them to tap public dissatisfaction at the world’s deepest recession and highest inflation, along with worsening unemployment, poverty and shortages of food, medicine and other basics.
Given the nation’s recent history, there are no illusions that a single protest will unseat the government. In September last year, massive turnouts in support of a recall referendum were ignored by the authorities, but analysts say those who feel only deja vu at the protests are missing the point.
Professor of social sciences Margarita Lopez-Maya said the recent rallies have drawn international attention and helped to rejuvenate and unite a weary and divided opposition.
“Legislators are now willing to go march and to take a beating. You didn’t see that before,” she said. “The international community has become aware of what is happening here, and they have sanctioned and heavily criticized the Maduro government. This also hadn’t happened before.”
Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue president Michael Shifter said the nation remained in a stalemate, but it would be wrong to assume nothing has changed.
“We saw more anger and more intensity at this march. There were also more people from popular sectors who were willing to protest than previously. It was not just the middle class. This is a sign that the base of Chavismo is extremely upset and disenchanted,” he said.
The most likely way out, he said, was to ensure that elections — particularly the presidential race that is supposed to take place at the end of next year — go ahead as scheduled.
“That should be the focus going forward. Insisting on elections is something the international community could also support very easily,” he said, adding that the United Socialist Party figurehead and former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez prided himself on being able to face the people at the polls.
Maduro, by contrast, looks increasingly reluctant to allow the public to pass judgment on his rule. Lacking his predecessor’s charisma and economic good fortune, he has struggled in elections.
After a razor-thin victory in the 2013 presidential race, his party suffered a landslide defeat in the legislative campaign in 2015. Since then, his government has steadily turned its back on democracy.
The electoral council last year blocked a recall referendum, regional elections were postponed indefinitely and the strongly pro-government supreme court last month briefly attempted to assume the powers of Congress.
Two weeks ago, opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles was barred from running for office until 2032. Another opposition figure, Leopoldo Lopez, has been in prison for the past three years. Six members of the Primero Justicia party on Thursday were also detained in El Paraiso, a neighborhood in western Caracas, lawmaker Jorge Millan said.
The cries of “dictator” grow louder at each march.
Regional pressure on the nation is growing. The US, along with 11 other nations in the Organization of American States, have urged the government in Caracas to respect democratic principles and allow elections, but such appeals have limited effect.
Maduro and his ministers have dismissed what they call “outside interference,” repeating old and unproven claims that they are the targets of an attempted coup aimed at grabbing the world’s biggest oil reserves and removing a socialist administration.
Their indifference to the opinions of capitalist countries was underlined this week, and such moves — along with the steady deterioration of the economy — have prompted fears that Venezuela could become the Zimbabwe of Latin America with multiple crises dragging on while an unpopular government clings to power.
However, it is not there yet. Although elections, opposition and protest are increasingly threatened, there is still wider scope for them to influence the nation than in Cuba or Nicaragua, Amherst College professor of political science Javier Corrales said.
That might be a low bar, but he says this makes demonstrations like Wednesday’s all the more important.
“They make a difference. They raise the opposition’s morale. They scare the government. It allows them to realize that there are huge costs to what they are doing,” he said. “The mistake is to think that the only measure of success of a protest is changing the government. If you use other measures, there are huge rewards.”
Venezuela can no doubt expect more demonstrations. The question is whether it can also expect more elections.
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