Misery and misconceptions as crisis in Venezuela deepens.
| Autor | Gaudin, Andres |
Against a string of obstacles, some of which it created, Venezuela's opposition bloc has set things in motion for a referendum that could perhaps put an early end to the presidency of Nicolas Maduro. Time, though, is not on the opposition's side as the do-or-die date for the recall project-- Jan. 10, 2017 --looms.
The country's top electoral authority (Consejo Nacional Electoral) validated the steps taken so far by the opposition coalition Mesa de la Unidad Democratica (MUD) and fixed the deadline for the next step in the process--the gathering of nearly 4 million signatures (representing 20% of the registered electorate, as required by the Constitution)--for late October (NotiSur, April 8, 2016).
But given that the signatures would then need to be validated, and that there would also be a 90-day delay before a referendum could be held, it's unlikely the vote would take place by Jan. 10. In that case, even if voters opted to oust Maduro, his administration would stay on until the natural end of its term, in January 2019. Why? Because the Constitution establishes that if a recall vote takes places before a leader completes two-thirds of his or her term (Jan. 10, in this case), and the vote is affirmative, new elections must be called. But if the referendum occurs after the cut-off date, what remains of the president's six-year term must be completed by the vice-president, meaning the government would remain in the hands of the "chavistas," as members of the governing Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) are known.
Political ineptitude and internal divisions on the side of the opposition also favor the government's chances of staying on until 2019. Analysts who are close to or were in some cases even members of the MUD say the coalition has failed to take advantage of what seemed, at first glance, to be a clear majority opposing Maduro. "We lost the mobilizing power we had. The only persistent support the current [opposition] leadership enjoys comes from abroad," Ramon Aveledo, a former MUD secretary and political moderate, was quoted as saying earlier this month in the conservative daily El Nacional.
Within the country, the government and opposition are locked in a tiresome game of back-and-forth accusations that hasn't helped either get a clear message across. But outside the country, the MUD continues to score points with major media outlets, the UN and the Organization of Americans States (OAS), and some Latin American governments...
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