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This article is published under the partnership agreement between Nueva Sociedad and DemocraciaAbierta. You can read the original version here.
The current Venezuelan conflict is similar to Aikido, the Japanese martial art where you overcome your opponent by using his own strength against him. In October 2016, when a consensus of the masses and the international community had been reached for holding a recall referendum as a means to resolving the political crisis, some opposition spokespersons attended an improvised roundtable discussion which left them with the idea that the government would call an early general election. Taking advantage of the tactical error of the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), the government managed to blow the confidence of the latter’s support bases and to spread disillusionment. A few months later, as a punishment to the National Assembly which had approved a declaration supporting the application of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the government formalized the substitution process of the powers of the Assembly with two rulings by the Constitutional Court, the country's highest legal authority. Although the neutralizing of Parliament had actually been a fait accompli for more than a year, with very little political cost to Miraflores (the presidential palace in Caracas), its formalization sparked a wave of rejection which included the Attorney General of the Republic, Luisa Ortega Díaz. The opposition political parties, taking advantage of Chavism’s blunder, managed to revamp their voters’ confidence, and launched a wave of protests which is currently ongoing.
