Chavez is one of the few revolutionaries to come to power through the ballot box, in 1998, and his movement has consolidated its grip on power through 20 elections since, all the while voter turnout growing.
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“The way Chavism has done things up to now is at an end”, said Benigno Alarcon, a political scientist at Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas.
“They need to ruin Petrocaribe to change the newest freedom”, Maduro said, adding that he’d defend the plan and other regional initiative, such as the ALBA and UNASUR bloc of countries, which are essential to Venezuela’s worldwide standing. “But the only way it can survive and recover is by adapting to the democratic rules of the game and not to hegemony, which is no longer possible”. That has allowed the opposition to win 67 percent of the seats in the National Assembly, despite winning 56 percent of the popular vote.
That move, and the leader’s fiery rhetoric against “Yankee imperialism” riled Washington and its allies. The Bolivarians fought dirty: they jailed opposition leaders and banned others from running, nobbled the independent press and put up a sham party to siphon votes away from the MUD. State television stations, including this one, have become organs of propaganda for the socialist party. But that will now be controlled by a majority of the opposition coalition MUD. Mr Maduro is not due to face an election until 2018.
The PSUV now has to focus on “the survival of Chavismo”, said Elsa Cardozo, a political scientist at Simon Bolivar University.
The regional board of the state of Aragua had already acknowledged the opposition’s victory in district three, the last to be assigned, where opposition activist Karin Salanova defeated the governmet’s rival with a mere 82-vote margin.
Chavez was loved by many Venezuelans for championing the poor. The collapse of oil prices has brought relentless pressure on the legitimacy of the Chavistas from within and outside the country. There is triple-digit inflation, widespread shortages of consumer goods, a recession, low oil prices, non-working price controls, and a dysfunctional exchange rate system that is at the heart of the country’s economic mess.
The critical importance of judicial independence and its centrality to rule of law and human rights can not be underestimated, and the global community has a critical role to play in securing an independent judiciary in Venezuela, Human Rights Watch said. Mr. Maduro’s acceptance of his party’s defeat demonstrates the limits of power, even in Venezuela’s feeble democracy.
Political scientist Maria Teresa Romero in an online article foresaw “a deepening of the divisions within Chavism, particularly between the military group… and the civil group commanded by the president”.
Rarely do political events matter as much as Venezuela’s legislative election.
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Based on his past behavior, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is likely to try several dirty tricks – including buying off legislators and using the judiciary to curtail legislative powers – to weaken the opposition supermajority in the newly elected National Assembly. Due to a majoritarian electoral system, the MUD won 112 seats (67 percent), with the PSUV taking 55 (33 percent). Since the opposition got a two-thirds majority of seats, it will have important powers [PDF], such as the ability to remove Supreme Court judges, censure the vice president, and call an assembly to propose changes to the constitution.
