Photo courtesy of Nueva Sociedad. This article is being published as part of the partnership between Nueva Sociedad and democraciaAbierta. You can read the original article here.
The regional elections of October 15 were a true catastrophe for the opposition in Venezuela. Few times in history has an electoral event had such overwhelming consequences: practically, the destruction of the loser – nothing less. The Democratic Unity Table (MUD), the alliance of parties that, with some success, had been confronting Nicolás Maduro, has dissolved and the parties that made it up, each with its own interpretation of what happened, have now regrouped into three large blocks which are more or less opposed to each other. The candidates who, until the day before the elections, had been well placed in the polls, are now blurred to the point that nobody seriously considers them as potential candidates for the forthcoming elections in 2018. And the opposition voters, who are still in a majority, have sunk into hopelessness and do not know if to give up and accommodate as best they can with the situation, or to find a way to move abroad.
How was this hecatomb possible? How is it that, after four months of protests that practically paralyzed the country, with a government disapproval rate of about 80%, international condemnation and sanctions, the worst economic crisis in the history of the country and the possibility of a default in the very short term, Maduro can claim victory and such a huge one at that?
