Across Venezuela, opposition supporters protested Wednesday in reaction to President Nicolas Maduro shutting down the option of a recall referendum against him. On October 20, Maduro alleged fraud in the collection of the more than 200,000 signatures needed for a referendum – thereby, making a referendum impossible.
Maduro’s decision established the government as an authoritarian regime and no longer the hybrid regime it had been for so long, wrote Professor Javier Corrales in the Americas Quarterly. At the same time, the decision united the opposition, in the belief that taking to the streets is now the only way to get rid of Maduro.
Unity, however, might be short-lived. Perhaps seeing its mistake, the government announced this week plans to call for a dialogue with the opposition (plans that Obama and the Pope have each said they support, with the Vatican agreeing to mediate). It is unclear whether the dialogue will indeed take place, and whether it will truly represent a way forward for Venezuela. But by putting another institutional option on the table, the government is seeking to divide the opposition into two camps: those who support an institutional way to end the regime and those who support running through the streets.
The opposition group’s name, Mesa de Unidad Democrática (Democratic Unity Table), is perhaps a misnomer. The organization, established as a formal political party in 2012, groups together leaders and supporters of dozens of smaller political parties – including the two parties that alternated power in the country until 1999, when the Chavista regime took over. It includes people who oppose the government from the right and the left, people who think it is necessary to maintain Chavismo’s social programs and people who disagree, and people who think the way out of Chavismo is to run through the streets and those who believe there is an institutional way to end this regime.
The main chasm in the opposition is perfectly illustrated in its two major leaders. On the one side, there is Henrique Capriles Radonski, a former governor who ran against Hugo Chávez for the presidency in 2012, but chose not to contest the election results that gave Chávez a very narrow electoral victory. Capriles is an icon for the part of the opposition that believes the only valid way out is through institutional means, like a recall referendum. Leopoldo López, on the other side, is a young former mayor who was jailed in 2014 for refusing to stop coordinated student protests throughout the country.
In fact, 2014 can provide insight into the government’s calls for dialogue today. The college students who led those protests enjoyed levels of popularity much beyond those of the president. After rounds of repression and calls for counter-protests by students at government-created loyalist universities failed to quell the unrest, the government offered an invitation to dialogue. The students, once united by their desire to end the regime, quickly split into two camps, and the protests died out.
Offering a way out other than protesting partially succeeds in restoring a veneer of legitimacy to the government, and greatly succeeds at dividing the opposition. Calling for a dialogue mediated by a foreign actor should be seen as the regime’s attempt to hang on to power, not to relinquish it.
