Venezuelan Democracy in Limbo

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/opinion/venezuelan-democracy-in-limbo.html

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Caracas, Venezuela — The decision on Thursday by several Venezuelan courts to annul the signatures gathered to activate a recall referendum casts into limbo the possibility of removing President Nicolás Maduro from office by constitutional, peaceful and electoral means. Unsurprisingly, the National Electoral Council used the decision to announce a few hours later that this week’s signature collection had been suspended, thus preventing the referendum from being carried out.

This judicial stratagem exudes an aura of illegality and cannot be explained without taking into account the ironclad concentration of powers wielded by the Chavista government in Venezuela since 2005. As the constitutional lawyer Gustavo Linares Benzo has stressed, Article 35 of the Penal Code “clearly states that no criminal court judge may annul administrative acts.” But this is exactly what happened when the courts annulled the initial decision of the electoral authorities to accept the one percent of the signatures already gathered in a first-stage drive for the recall referendum.

The government has trapped the opposition in a dead end, confining it within the institutional framework, and its remaining options are as difficult as they are crucial. The opposition’s majority leader in the National Assembly, Julio Borges, announced on Sunday a legal investigation against Mr. Maduro to assess his responsibility “in the constitutional rupture that has broken democracy.”

Venezuela is at a breaking point. Canceling the referendum, which the majority wanted, closes the escape valve that has so far contained the discontent of over 80 percent of Venezuelans in the face of the economic and social collapse brought about by Mr. Maduro’s government. And there is no doubt that adding greater pressure to the boiling cauldron that Venezuelan society has become could cause it to explode.

From the beginning, the Chavista strategy has been to impede the electoral process by making use of the Supreme Court and the Consejo Nacional Electoral-CNE, both controlled by the executive branch. Since June, Chavista leaders had been insisting that more than 600,000 signatures were fraudulent or defective. But that number is above the number required (1 percent of the electorate) and had already been validated by the CNE to activate the second phase of the referendum.

The political opposition movement, which had committed a series of errors including La Salida (The Way Out) — street protests that were brutally suppressed by the police and military forces — decided to unite around the proposal initially made by Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the leader of the Primero Justicia, a center-right party, who demanded the recall referendum. On learning the decision of the criminal courts, Mr. Capriles Radonsky tweeted, “No court announcement made by a few people in power through cronyism can stop the people’s electoral process.”

Last Thursday’s events are the culmination of a week filled with important news, including the postponement of elections for governors and mayors until mid-2017 and the preventive measure of house arrest for Manuel Rosales, a political prisoner and the leader of Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Time), one of the four main parties that dominate the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática-MUD (Democratic Unity), the opposition coalition. And at the same time, the criminal court of Carabobo State barred some of the opposition’s leaders from leaving the country, among them Jesús Torrealba, the spokesman for the MUD, and Mr. Capriles Radonsky.

The house arrest benefit granted to Mr. Rosales credits rumors in political circles, which could be summed up in this speculated quid pro quo: Mr. Rosales gets out of jail in exchange for the opposition desisting on the recall referendum. The important thing in this scheme isn’t even its veracity, but the negative effect it will have among the opposition, who are by now extremely divided.

The government is tightening the noose, but risking international sanctions and a social explosion. The opposition is at a crossroads: Either take to the streets, or promote a political front that will unite social and political forces (including discontented sectors of the Chavista party) in a battle for the Constitution and the recall referendum.

It will be like crossing a desert. What’s more, it will be a civil disobedience movement, a vehicle for confronting the government. In particular, this movement will call for protection from the military, whose role in the political landscape has so far been behind the scenes. What will happen to the military if the protests on the streets become even stronger? Will they split, just as the country’s political forces have done? The most troubling thing is not the answers to these questions; it is the casual way Venezuelans are talking about a possible civil war.

With an electoral majority, but without the institutional power to carry out political change — the Supreme Court declared the National Assembly to be in contempt — the opposition has no alternative left but to take to the streets. And the government, which has shown its true colors — it now wears a military uniform — has no other option than stepping up repression. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate with an entity that controls the electoral authorities and the Supreme Court, and also has tanks and guns. Building a solid political front, which unites social forces to defend the Constitution and can pressure the government with protests, strikes and public demonstrations, is not an immediate option.

The MUD has called for a peaceful national protest demonstration for this Wednesday, dubbed “The Takeover of Venezuela,” indicating that it won’t stand back with folded arms in the face of attempts to impose a de facto dictatorship in Venezuela. But it is hard to predict a result. In the past, the opposition has been unable to turn discontent into political action, but Venezuelan society is now exhausted. Laying siege on the government from various fronts, as occurred in Brazil or Chile, would take time. The transition will now be much more hostile than the one offered by the recall referendum, and will take a toll of still more blood, sweat and tears.