Venezuela Timing and the Opposition
Gabriel Hetland has an article in The Nation about Venezuela, which is a good read for several reasons. He is sympathetic to the ideals of Chavismo but clear-eyed with regard to the ways in which the government has shot itself in the foot.
Further, he has an intriguing argument:
Officially, the opposition is adamantly opposed to delaying the referendum beyond January 10. There is speculation, however, that many opposition leaders actually prefer this scenario because the next several years are likely to be exceedingly difficult no matter who is in office. If the Maduro government stays in power it will pay the price. The opposition would thus be well positioned to win the 2019 presidential election.
I'm not a fan of the passive voice with regard to this sort of thing because there is no sense at all of who is making such a speculation and who the "many" opposition leaders actually are. I see the logic here, but I am left with the question: the opposition is already well positioned to win an election, so why would it want to wait and win later when things are actually worse?
1 comments:
Oh, the reason why the opposition would want power now is because it could begin at or near rock bottom, and get credibility for improvement.
Again, there are no actual answers here. Venezuela is just Somalia with bigger government trimmings. The opposition basically just want to run Venezuela like Colombia. Of course, even just doing some sort of hanseatic league stuff and letting the rest of the country rot still requires governmental capacity not likely to exist.
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