No clear end in sight to Venezuela’s political crisis

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The swift-moving events in Venezuela in recent days suggest a sharp escalation in the country's political crisis.

A new Constituent Assembly, elected in a vote widely believed to be fraudulent, displaced the opposition-controlled Congress from the national assembly. The new government-dominated body immediately fired the chief prosecutor, who had recently been critical of human rights abuses. The regional political bloc suspended Venezuela, and the United States imposed new sanctions on its leaders. Meanwhile on Tuesday, the United Nations Human Rights Office said it had evidence of "widespread and systematic use" of excessive force and other rights violations by government.

Taken together, all of this might suggest that a pivotal confrontation is looming – that some sort of dramatic shift is coming in the country with the world's highest rate of inflation, critical shortages of food and medicine, and a ballooning number of political prisoners.

Related: While the people of Venezuela suffer, its president paints a rosy picture

In a situation this volatile, there is always the possibility of the dead-of-night-military coup (there was a quickly suppressed mini-revolt on Sunday) or a putsch of President Nicolas Maduro from within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

But a close reading of the situation suggests that suffering Venezuelans are likely in for more of the same for some time yet.

"Maduro is prolonging the slow death of our democracy," said Margarita Lopez Maya, an expert on Venezuelan politics and professor at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas.

With the installation of the new Constituent Assembly, Mr. Maduro has effectively doubled down. And his success in installing it, all but unopposed, suggests his grip on the country remains strong.

"Political Chavismo is in a transition to a new super-powerful situation, and they're quite stable right now and flush with new power; it's like Christmas Day," said David Smilde, who teaches Latin American politics at Tulane University and has lived in Caracas for much of the past 25 years, referring to the movement begun by the late president Hugo Chavez.

But Prof. Lopez is less convinced. She sees an irrevocable split within the ruling party between those who are prepared to rewrite the constitution inherited from Mr. Chavez to keep power and those who aren't, and she anticipates that there will be a steady drip of breakaways like the chief prosecutor, Luisa Ortega Diaz. But Prof. Lopez says the effect of the erosion of the ruling party won't be fast.

Meanwhile, the response of the Venezuelan opposition to the events of recent days has not been as forceful as might have been predicted by the large street demonstrations of recent months.

To speak to opposition leaders in Venezuela, or to their hardcore supporters, is to be given the impression that they are going to force the government into new national elections at any moment. But even in moments as critical as these, with the literal takeover of the National Assembly, the opposition was unable to mobilize huge crowds or present a single coherent message.

"Last week was amazing, how the opposition has fallen apart and fallen down on the job – everybody assumed they would have something planned, even if it was more of the same [demonstrations] but even stronger – but they didn't mobilize or protect the National Assembly," Prof. Smilde said. "They had the whole world in their favour and they were unable to capitalize."

The Venezuelan opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD, in its Spanish acronym) is a coalition of circumstance – ranging from left-of-centre parties to hard-right ones – and they are divided on how to respond to Mr. Maduro's growing authoritarianism.

Julia Buxton, a Venezuela expert with the Central European University, argues that they have yet to provide the public with any kind of outline of what they would do were they to gain power. She added they remain, even nearly 20 years after the start of Chavismo, unable to acknowledge the reasons why Mr. Chavez and his socialist agenda were initially so popular (the country's monstrous inequality, and the fact that so many were poor despite the fact Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves). This continues to hamper their ability to connect with the broader population, who are deeply disenchanted with the Chavistas but don't see their concerns reflected by the opposition, she said.

No single opposition figure is emerging as a clear leader at this juncture. Leopoldo Lopez, back on house arrest after more than two years in prison on specious charges, has a compelling story but little support in traditional Chavista neighbourhoods.

Henrique Capriles, a co-founder of Mr. Lopez's Primero Justicia party, is better-known but barred by the government from participating in politics and, Prof. Buxton said, irreparably tainted by the fact that he lost elections to both Mr. Maduro and Mr. Chavez.

The other opposition leaders have even less of a base nationally; certainly there is no one in a position to bridge the divide in this sharply polarized society.

There is a similar dearth of unifiers on the opposing side. Mr. Maduro isn't particularly popular even within the party. Diosdado Cabello, deputy chief of the socialist party, appears increasingly powerful but is, if anything, more hardline than Mr. Maduro. "In the most optimistic scenario, you would see the most moderate Chavistas peeling off and negotiating," Prof. Buxton said. The upper echelons of the military, whose loyalty Mr. Maduro has assiduously cultivated through a combination of perks and purges, appears to continue to back him.

The opposition is divided over its next difficult choice, whether to participate in regional elections in December. Should they boycott, the government can claim that it is trying to maintain the democratic process, but the opposition doesn't trust the ballot box and the choice of voters. If MUD does agree to participate, it will be with the knowledge that the Constituent Assembly is ruling over the judiciary and electoral commission, and there is no reason to expect the vote will be any more fair than the one that elected the assembly. Reuters reported that the U.K.-based company that made the voting machines said the government counted at least a million votes in excess of what was cast and turnout was "without doubt manipulated."

The Vatican has been attempting a mediation role but is not particularly trusted by either side. Regional political bodies have made no useful intervention. Venezuela's oil production has fallen dramatically, but continues to bring in precious hard currency. While the U.S. made a show of putting new sanctions on Mr. Maduro this past week, they were hollow: the President likely has no personal assets in the country he brands the Evil Empire and wasn't going to take a California holiday. And Washington doesn't seem primed to block imports of Venezuela's oil, which would be much more damaging for the Maduro regime, as the U.S. is the largest market for Venezuelan heavy crude.

It is difficult to believe, looking at Venezuela's devastated public hospitals or the crowds of people scuffling to rummage in dumpsters for food, that the country could carry on for even another week as it is. And yet one only has to look at Zimbabwe, where Robert Mugabe remains in power nine years after what seemed like the pivotal, can't-go-on moment for that country, to be reminded that this status quo may well endure.

The next obvious make-or-break moment for the Maduro regime comes in November, when the country is scheduled to make a huge payment on its external debt. Venezuelans have little reason to think much will have shifted by then. "Unfortunately, I think there is a lot more violence to come," Prof. Buxton said.