Members of Venezuela’s opposition canvassed military bases across the embattled nation on Sunday, offering amnesty to troops and police officers who defect from the South American nation’s embattled president Nicolás Maduro.

Q&A Why is Venezuela in such a bad way? Show Venezuela’s current plight can be traced to a revolution that went terribly wrong. When Hugo Chávez, a former military officer, was elected president in 1998, he inherited a middle-income country plagued by deep inequality. Chávez had led an abortive coup attempt in 1992 and after winning power through the ballot box he set about transforming society. Chávez drove through a wide range of social reforms as part of his Bolivarian revolution, financed with the help of high oil profits – but he also bypassed parliament with a new constitution in 1999. The muzzling of parliamentary democracy – and the spread of corruption and mismanagement in state-run enterprises – intensified after 2010 amid falling oil prices. Chávez’s “economic war” against shortages led to hyperinflation and the collapse of private sector industry. The implosion in the economy between 2013 and 2017 was worse than the US in the Great Depression. In an attempt to stabilise the economy and control prices of essential goods, Chávez introduced strict controls on foreign currency exchange, but the mechanism soon became a tool for corruption. When Chávez died of cancer, his place was taken by his foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, who has intensified his mentor’s approach of responding to the economic downward spiral by concentrating power, ruling by decree and political repression. Photograph: HANDOUT/X80001

The bold attempt to dent Maduro’s grip on the military – long seen as the arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela – was led by Juan Guaidó, the leader of the opposition-held national assembly, who last Wednesday declared himself interim president until fresh elections are held.

“What you have, not with me but with us, is a guarantee of protection,” Guaidó said to supporters and troops at one event in Caracas.

Copies of an amnesty law drafted by the national assembly, though not approved, were also distributed.

“In Venezuela there are more than 300 political prisoners, citizens subjected to torture and the unjust justice of the regime, for raising their voices and fighting for a free, democratic and just nation,” Guaidó tweeted on Sunday morning. “The amnesty law is for them and by them.”

A member of the Bolivarian National Guard burns a copy of amnesty measures for anyone in the military who disavows Maduro Photograph: Yuri Cortéz/AFP/Getty Images

At that event and several others that began on Sunday morning, members of the opposition handed out letters to troops, which promised that members of “the military and police that contribute to the reestablishment of democratic order will be able to reinsert themselves in the democratic life of our country”.

In Petare, a working class neighbourhood in Caracas, officials burnt the documents, while at one event outside a base attached to La Casona, a presidential residence in Caracas that Maduro has opted not to use, soldiers opened the gate to receive the documents before moments later launching the papers across the floor.

“This is why this amnesty law is so important,” said Nancy Zea, a Guaidó supporter. “We don’t want any confrontation with the security forces; we don’t want a coup.”

Torn copies of the amnesty measures after being distributed by opposition supporters in Caracas. Photograph: Luis Robayo/AFP/Getty Images

Despite high tensions, violence had not broken out by Sunday lunchtime. Some police officers even expressed support for the amnesty.

“We have had enough – we are also normal people and we are suffering like everyone else,” said one police officer who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal. “That’s why why want change and we believe that this government must go. We want these insects to go.”

Oil-rich Venezuela is racked with hyperinflation, rendering the bolivar currency practically worthless. Shortages in food staples and basic medicines are rampant, and crime is widespread. More than 3 million Venezuelans have fled, causing consternation across the continent.

Q&A Why is the US backing Juan Guiadó? Show Donald Trump has a weakness for autocrats, but Nicolás Maduro has been an exception. With little personal interest in Latin America, the US president has allowed policy towards Venezuela to be steered by hawks in his administration – including his vice-president, Mike Pence, and the national security adviser, John Bolton – and in the Senate. The Republican senator Marco Rubio, whose Florida electorate includes an increasing number of Venezuelan exiles, has been an important influence, and appears to have suspended criticism of Trump in return for hardline policies towards Cuba and Venezuela. Diplomats at the state department advocating dialogue have been overruled in favour of a policy orientated around regime change. Trump himself has mused about a military option, and the unanswered question is how the administration hopes to follow through on its gambit to recognise Guaidó in the absence of mass defections in the armed forces. That does not seem to have been thought through. The US has already imposed significant sanctions on Maduro’s ruling circle. A full oil embargo would bring more devastation to the Venezuelan people and could backfire on the US economy. The administration could ultimately be left with the choice between abandoning Guaidó or risking armed confrontation. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Sunday’s attempts to sway the military follow the defection of Maduro’s defence attache to the Venezuelan embassy in Washington to Guaidó on Saturday.