Venezuela’s self-styled socialist experiment faces its toughest test yet this weekend in a parliamentary election held amid crippling inflation and spiralling crime that appear to have turned the tide against the late Hugo Chávez’s “Bolivarian revolution”.

Polls show the opposition stand to win a majority of seats in the country’s unicameral National Assembly but President Nicolás Maduro, Chávez’s handpicked successor, has said that he would “not hand over the revolution” if the ruling party loses at the polls.

Opposition candidates are leading by 25-30% in most races, despite what critics say has been a campaign skewed by government intervention on behalf of ruling party candidates, a lack of access to media and incidents of violence.

“Barring some very large election fraud, the opposition will win by a wide margin. The ruling party majority is almost certain to get wiped out,” predicted Michael Henderson, an analyst with Verisk Maplecroft, a risk consultancy.

In Caracas’s central Bolivar Square, Daniel Estevez, a 47-year-old government employee who previously supported Chávez, speaks quietly to avoid being overheard by passersby. “The opposition offers an alternative,” he says. “We’re tired of having to stand in queues with the government not resolving anything. I say we give the other guys a chance to see what they can do.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and relies almost entirely on oil for hard currency. That worked well when oil prices were high, allowing Chávez to set up a broad social welfare system that won him a loyal following.

But Maduro took power as oil prices began to plummet and since his election the country’s citizens have faced severe shortages of basic goods, long lines at the supermarket and triple-digit inflation.

Venezuela’s fortunes have fallen fast and hard. According to a study by researchers at Venezuela’s top three universities released last month, a full 75% of Venezuelan homes now live in poverty, compared to 27% two years ago.

That has fueled frustration with Maduro and the revolution he vowed to continue. And while the country is deeply polarized politically, standing in long queues to find scarce subsidised goods such as nappies, cooking oil and many medicines is a daily routine of survival that crosses party lines.

Venezuela voters divided on everything but their dissatisfaction, survey finds Read more

According to a poll released on Thursday by the Pew Research Centre, a full 85% of Venezuelans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country.

Despite the difficulties, however, many Venezuelans stand by the president and his party, which blame the shortages of basic goods on what they see as an economic war to destabilize the government.

“It’s clear that the biggest problem is having to stand in line to buy food but we also see that it’s a strategy of the rich so that the poor people get pissed off and turn on Maduro,” said Mariana Navas, a 56-year-old housewife in the Carapinto neighbourhood in western Caracas.

Navas rejects the idea that the opposition can win Sunday’s elections. “That’s not a possibility,” she said. “The (Venezuelan) people woke up thanks to Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías and we will not go back to the past,” she said. “We are ready to defend our revolution even with our own lives.”

That attitude worries César Herrera, a motorcycle taxi driver in Caracas, who says he’ll vote for the opposition but wonders what sort of reaction Chavistas will have if they lose control of the assembly. “I think there’s going to be a shit-storm,” he says while waiting for passengers in the busy Plaza Venezuela of the capital.

“Those guys up there in the government aren’t going to let go that easily,” he says.

Even if the opposition does gain control of the assembly, their power to improve people’s lives could be severely limited. The PSUV currently controls every branch of government and state institutions.

If the opposition win, even before new legislators are sworn in, current lawmakers could extend the term and scope of enabling laws that allow the president to bypass the assembly, or the country’s high courts could simply determine laws passed as unconstitutional.

“They can pass all the laws they like in the assembly but it doesn’t mean the government will apply them,” says Phil Gunson, researcher for the International Crisis Group.

The opposition campaign has battled a system skewed against them.



In the run-up to the vote, top opposition leaders were jailed and others were banned from running for office. Tensions were heightened when opposition activist Luis Díaz was shot and killed at a rally in Guárico state on 25 November. The government condemned the attack but said it was the result of a gang dispute; opposition leaders said it was a political assassination orchestrated to scare people from their campaign events and the polls.

Those who do go to cast their vote may find the ballots confusing. In the city of Maracay two candidates named Ismael García are on the ballot, next to each other. One is the incumbent representative of the MUD opposition; the other for a new party called MIN. The parties’ logos bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. The attempt to stump voters was so blatant that electoral authorities fined the newer party.

The 27-party opposition grouped under the Democratic Unity Roundtable will also have to overcome personal and political rivalries and public disapproval. The two most public faces of the opposition, Henrique Capriles and Leopoldo López, each had approval ratings of just 36% in the recent Pew poll.

That’s only slightly better than Maduro, whose approval rating in the poll is 29%; other polls say it has sunk as low as 22%.

And even if the president is voted out of office, it remains unlikely that the country will see a rapid change in its fortunes, cautioned Henderson.

“It is not clear that an opposition win would be a silver bullet for Venezuela’s economic problems,” he said.



With a lack of concrete proposals to pull the country from the morass it is in, the opposition has relied on sending the message that anything is better than Maduro, said Henderson.



For many voters that appears to be convincing enough to let the opposition have a chance.

Estévez, the government worker in Bolivar Square, said that he supported Chávez – who died in 2013 of cancer – because he offered an alternative to the cronyism and corruption of government’s past.

“But things have gotten out of hand with Maduro,” says Estévez. That’s why we have to look for something different.”