A counter-revolution at polls
THE parliamentary election that took place in Venezuela on December 6 had been seen by the president, Nicholás Maduro, as a referendum on its “Bolivarian revolution”. The results are in, and the revolution has been resoundingly rejected. The Democratic Unity alliance (MUD), an opposition coalition united by its desire to end the incompetent and authoritarian regime of Mr Maduro and his fellow Bolivarians, won a “supermajority” of two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly. This is a catastrophe for the movement founded by Hugo Chávez, a charismatic populist who took power in 1999 and died in 2013, leaving the hapless Mr Maduro in charge.
For everyone else, it is a result to be celebrated. The Bolivarians fought dirty: they jailed opposition leaders, nobbled the independent media and put up a sham party to siphon votes away from the MUD. They lost anyway. That is because the government’s delusional policies, conceived to help the poor, are making all Venezuelans suffer, bar a corrupt few. Its “21st-century socialism” is a farrago of controls — of prices, foreign exchange and production. When oil prices were high, the country squandered its earnings on subsidies; now earnings from oil have plunged, leading to shortages of basic goods and an inflation rate that is one of the world’s highest. The economy is expected to shrink 10% this year. Nearly three-quarters of voters turned out and rejected the government by a whopping 15 percentage points.
But the opposition’s victory is incomplete, and the system it confronts is entrenched. Mr Maduro is not due to face an election until 2018. He has accepted the voters’ verdict, but misunderstood its message. He blamed his party’s loss on an imaginary “economic war” against the government.
Some leaders of the MUD hope that pragmatic chavistas will push Mr Maduro aside, roll back the barmiest Bolivarian policies and work with the opposition to rebuild democracy. It is more likely that the regime will subvert the new national assembly.
The opposition should therefore move to push Mr Maduro out of office through a recall referendum. That is a democratic procedure, allowed by Venezuela’s constitution. A recall would be followed by a presidential election, which the opposition would stand a good chance of winning, so long as it unites around a single candidate.
The opposition won the election with vague promises of change. To replace the bumbling Bolivarians, it must offer a plan to rescue the economy and repair Venezuela’s democracy. London, December 12.