Venezuela began 2018 in the midst of its worst economic crisis since the country’s independence. At the same time, President Nicolás Maduro’s efforts to prolong his presidency with snap elections and the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable’s (MUD) lack of strategy have left the country trapped in an economic and political labyrinth, all while the vast majority of Venezuelans are barely scraping by.

Studies by academics like Juan Manuel Puente have concluded that the collapse of the Venezuelan economy is only comparable with nations that have been devastated by war or environmental/economic catastrophes such as drought or flooding. According to data from 1980 to 2017, Venezuela is currently suffering the eighth worst multi-year contraction of GDP in history. It’s the only Latin American country on the list, but joins the illustrious company of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Bulgaria.

Venezuela’s macroeconomic crisis is reflected in the daily life of Venezuelans. A February 21 poll of 6,188 households commissioned by leading Venezuelan universities and led by sociologist María Gabriela Ponce shows that extreme poverty has grown from 23.6% to 61.2% in the last four years. That number increased by almost 10% between 2016 and 2017 alone.

The crisis affects every aspect of Venezuelan social life: shortage of cash, prices that double in a matter of weeks, lack of spare parts for vehicles, salaries pulverized by hyperinflation, lack of basic medicines, and collapse of the public health system.

Even with this backdrop of crisis, Nicolás Maduro is in a rush to organize this year’s elections. The contest will be tailor-made to benefit Maduro, with the opposition boycotting the vote, independent international observers nowhere to be seen, and a National Electoral Council that shamelessly follows Maduro’s wishes.

According to Marcos Hernández López, director of the public opinion firm Hercon Consultores, Maduro will carry out “a structure of perfectly rigged elections” in order to win—despite the fact that a majority of Venezuelans want change. One recent study by López reveals that 74.3% of the population thinks Maduro should step down in 2018.

On the other hand, Venezuela’s opposition continues to flounder. What looked to be a triumphant and competent alliance at the end of 2015, when it won an absolute majority in the National Assembly, has become an ineffective, disorganized mess.

The causes of the complete disarray surrounding the MUD are both exogenous and endogenous. After their initial success in winning control of the National Assembly, the Maduro regime successfully destroyed the Venezuelan legislative branch while also sowing discord and encouraging infighting within the opposition.

But the Maduro government didn’t wreak havoc on the MUD without help from within. In the last three years, the opposition movement has suffered from egocentric leadership, the loss of a unified voice, and the dismantling of an effective technocratic wing of the opposition. At the same time, MUD politicians have shown a remarkable lack of ability to connect with the day-to-day struggles of Venezuelans, while its new generation of young politicians have fallen into the vices of their corrupt predecessors.

With elections two months away, the opposition alliance looks motionless, absent and disconnected. The leadership of the opposition continues to fail the needs of the Venezuelan people in this historic moment.

Meanwhile, the objective conditions of the situation in Venezuela seem to indicate that the country is ready for change. The country is deep in crisis, an absolute majority of Venezuelans want change (not just of the president but of the way Venezuelan politics work), and the international community is relatively unified against the Maduro regime.

We Venezuelans are immersed in the worst of both worlds. On the one hand, the political and economic situation is unstable and unsustainable, especially for the millions of Venezuelans who are struggling to make ends meet every day. On the other hand, the re-election of the Maduro government—the very people responsible for the present situation—seems inevitable.

In the face of all this crisis, the response of the MUD has been empty. They don’t have a political response. They don’t have a unified voice. They can’t communicate with the Venezuelan people. There is no strategy.

Venezuela is a labyrinth, and Venezuelans continue to be forced to live in this realm of incompetence and uncertainty.