Venezuela Dialogue Aftermath

Both Caracas Chronicles and David Smilde live-blogged the dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition. Thank goodness, because it means you don't have to sit through it! My sense is that both came to very similar conclusions--Nicolás Maduro droned on too much, there was no real structure or mediation, the government got a photo op, and the MUD managed to get its message out to a very large audience.

In other words, there was no "winner" per se, which in fact is a good thing. This was, hopefully, a first encounter and as such it just lays the groundwork and establishes some level of trust in the endeavor. That alone is a success.

The big question right now is how the more extreme elements of the opposition take it. Dialogue undermines everything they're going for. That's a general theme--the protests did not crack the government, so what now? The opposition's unity will be tested and it does not have a history of holding together.