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Few countries seem as ripe for political turnover as Venezuela. After 16 years of one-party rule, it suffers the world’s highest inflation, a murder rate worse than Iraq’s and chronic shortages requiring hours in line to buy chicken or aspirin.

Yet, come legislative elections in December, the opposition probably won’t win a big enough majority to recover power. Its fractured 27 parties, cronyism and robust neglect of the hinterland are expected to help keep it from the needed threshold to unseat the socialists, in power since Hugo Chavez drove it from office in 1999.

Given the growing push by his successor, Nicolas Maduro, to intimidate the media, imprison critics and warn darkly of unrest -- along with the Byzantine nature of the electoral system and declining voter participation -- Maduro’s coalition is polling enough to survive its biggest challenge ever.

“The opposition are the odds-on favorite but their position is very shallow,” said David Smilde, a sociology professor who writes about Venezuela at Tulane University in New Orleans. “They haven’t been able to convert the dissatisfaction with the regime into identification with their movement.”

That failure was evident during a recent tropical downpour in the eastern Venezuelan state of Bolivar. There was Wilson Castro, an opposition activist, wading barefoot from hut to hut through the flooded streets of the San Felix shantytown. Residents, typically pro-government, rushed out to greet him, complaining about the shortages, crime and collapse of public services. Castro sensed a shift that was going to waste.

Thankless Task

“The mood on the streets is changing; people are losing faith in this government,” said Castro, a 42-year-old son of Colombian immigrant laborers and a former mechanic. “We need to do more to channel this discontent into votes.”

For 11 years, Castro has been building support in these neighborhoods, the ones that have kept the socialists in power. It has been a thankless task: In June, his Justice First party bypassed him for nomination to the National Assembly from Bolivar in favor of Angel Medina, a Caracas-based political scientist who hasn’t lived in the state for 20 years.

Like most of the opposition leaders, including former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, Medina joined a party as a university student and has never held a job outside politics.

That approach to party leadership is causing growing concern. The regional heads of the Christian Democratic Party just deposed their national directorate for passing over locals in favor of Caracas-based politicians, many in their 70s, for the congress nominations.

Need a Landslide

“We reject the insider deals,” Pedro Urrieta, the new president of the Christian Democrats, said at a press conference on Aug. 5. “The protagonists in this election are not the parties. The protagonists are the community activists who travel by boat or foot to bring the message of change.”

Opposition leaders say their real problems are beyond their control.

“Venezuela is not a functioning democracy,” lamented Jesus Torrealba, head of the opposition alliance, known as the Democratic Union Roundtable, or MUD, in an interview. “We are not going into elections in a Swiss canton where whoever wins by even one vote is recognized as a winner. We don’t just need a victory, we need a landslide.”

Assaulted, Kicked Out

The experiences of another opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, tell a larger story. In the last two years, she has been kicked out of the Assembly, assaulted in the street and banned from travel abroad for speaking out against Maduro. Last month, a court banned her from running again, at which point the opposition alliance refused to let her choose a replacement.

“I think this is a great injustice and I hope my case will serve to create discussion, reflection and correction,” she said. “Venezuela has changed tremendously in the last few years. The leaders of the opposition need to start changing with it.”

MUD probably will win 33 percent in the December elections, compared with 21 percent for the socialists, according to the most recent poll, a June survey by Venezuelan Institute of Datanalisis, or IVAD. This is short of the two-thirds needed to gain real power for veto rights and a say in official appointments.

Moreover, disillusioned voters are opting for independent candidates over the opposition, said Felix Seijas Jr., IVAD’s chief pollster. They gained four percentage points between May and June, compared with a one-percentage-point rise for MUD.

Supporting Independents

“In many cases those who say they support an independent don’t even have a candidate in mind, they just know they don’t like either of the existing camps,” Seijas said.

Also worrying for MUD is the risk of decreasing voter participation. In the June poll, only 67.4 percent of respondents said they would take part in the elections, down from 68.2 percent a month earlier.

Lower participation favors Maduro since his overwhelming control of media, financial resources and welfare institutions makes it easier for him to motivate core supporters than the harassed and underfunded opposition, said Luis Vicente Leon, director of Datanalisis, a Caracas-based polling company.

Banned Candidates

In the past month, the government has banned three opposition candidates on charges ranging from failing to declare food vouchers received while in office to instigating violence. One is in jail; another escaped to Miami.

“This country will slide into civil war if the opposition wins,” Maduro warned a rally on Aug. 3, an assertion many saw as intimidation made more effective by the opposition’s failures.

In the western state of Tachira, for example, the opposition alliance chose two Caracas-based student activists over local organizers who manned the barricades during a four-month street battle with the National Guards last year.

“If you had attractive local candidates with strong roots in the area and charisma, as well as a motivating national campaign offering an alternative, these elections could transform into a symbol of change,” said Leon, the pollster. “This is the opposition’s elections to lose.”