In Venezuela, more than half a million people marched on September 1 to protest against the government, calling on the electoral authority to approve a .

“In light of these objectives, amply fulfilled, I declare that the ‘taking of Caracas’ was a resounding success, marking the time of a struggle that starts now,” said Jesús Torrealba, secretary of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

Opposition supporters have expressed their disagreement with government policies and said that they felt “anger” because of the difficult situation Venezuelans currently face. Food shortages exceed 80% and more than half of the population claim to have gone to bed hungry, .

The MUD has devised new methods of protesting and called on citizens to participate in a “National Cacerolazo” at 8:00pm and pound kitchen pots outside their homes. Opponents stood in the streets for 10 minutes on September 7, and another demonstration is expected on September 14. Once enough support has been generated, Torrealba said, “we will call [everyone to take part in] ‘the taking of Venezuela’ for 24 hours straight, demanding the recall referendum.”

Parallel to the opposition protest in eastern Caracas, the Chavismo movement was concentrated in the west of the capital. Maduro spoke to his crowd of supporters, visibly smaller than the opposition’s, and said: “If you see them do something against President Maduro, take to the streets in a civilian-military union and make the most radical revolution … Today, we defeated an attempted coup that sought to fill with deaths this beautiful Caracas.”

In his speech, the Venezuelan president announced that he would request an override of “parliamentary immunity of the opposition’s elected National Assembly members.” Days earlier, Maduro said he would file a lawsuit against opposition member Henry Ramos, the president of the National Assembly, for his “racist and violent speech.”

Three days later, on September 3, Maduro traveled to the island of Margarita, one Venezuela’s top tourist locations, and visited the Villa Rosa, a traditionally Chavista community. He toured the area without his security cordon, and a group of people pounded their kitchen pots to protest, and some even approached the president to push him. Maduro fled the place running. The government made no official statement about the incident, but a spokesman claimed it was an opposition montage, referring to a  that later went viral. Five people were arrested.

agree that Maduro has radicalized his speech and become more aggressive with the opposition. Before the “,” nine opposition leaders were arrested or transferred to prison for allegedly being involved in acts of destabilizing Venezuela. Most of them are members of Voluntad Popular, the party of political prisoner Leopoldo López.

On September 5, the Supreme Court declared null all acts of the Venezuelan parliament for the swearing in of three members of the opposition, who had been suspended by the court. The assembly was declared unfit to legislate.

Polls favor the opposition

Between February and June 2016, the support for a recall referendum increased from 40% to 58%, according to , one of the biggest pollsters in Venezuela. The study concluded that more than 10 million voters would vote against the president, and this number exceeds the required number of signatures needed to carry out a recall referendum.

The discontent in popular neighborhoods also seems to affect the popularity of the president. In a national survey by Datincorp, 57% of inhabitants in shanty towns said they want Maduro to leave the government.

The opposition has accused the National Electoral Council (CNE), which is responsible for conducting the elections, of violating internal regulations and delaying the process. It is still unknown whether the recall referendum will be held this year or next. If it is carried out in 2017, Vice President Aristóbulo Istúriz would assume the presidency instead of an election being held. However, the electorate is willing to vote on both dates, according Datincorp’s study.

Opposition has the ball

“What matters now, what is now different from the past, is that polls show that the opposition is the majority. And the size of this mobilization (the taking of Caracas) shows that now the opposition is able to stay in the street,” says Luis Vicente León, director of the Datanálisis national consultancy, in an article published by  a day after the march.

“Although it advances slowly, the recall referendum is leaving sequels that are increasingly determinants. It’s like a snowball that grows over time. The march of September 1 seems to reflect a point of no return, and what happened at Villa Rosa shows an effect of that snowball, that it is already reaching the lower strata,” .

Both León and Penfold agree that the “taking of Caracas” was a victory for members of the opposition because they showed their political muscle and their power of mobilization.

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“Well, the opposition needs to keep pressure on the central objective: the fulfillment of constitutional rights. Today the issue is not size: the opposition majority is something we already knew. It is time to use [the] peaceful pressure … that began today. The key is to understand how it is maintained,” says León.

What will the Chavismo do? Penfold responds in his article by saying: “Once the opposition has collected 20% in October, President Maduro will bet on an abstention. He will try to convince his own [base] that he can prevent the opposition getting enough votes to recall him. But Chavismo looks exhausted after a futile resistance, and it is very likely they abandon him publicly.”

The CNE has already said that a recall referendum will be held between the October 24 and 30, but it has not announced a final date.

Political analyst Alberto Aranguibel differs with León and Penfold. In a conversation with 51�Թ�, he says that on September 1 “the winner was Venezuela … It showed that there is full political freedom, a proper performance of democracy, and there is no risk of persecution against the opposition political leadership.”

Despite the projection, Venezuela’s political future remains uncertain. One question that remains unanswered is what will happen if parliamentary immunity is removed. How will the opposition react to this? What will the government do? Will the president of the assembly go to prison?

It seems that the battle for the recall referendum will take more than a few months.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In ’s most recent parliamentary elections on December 6, 2015, Chavismo experienced its first political setback since coming to power 17 years ago. The Venezuelan opposition won 112 of the 169 seats in the National Assembly, the country’s legislative branch. According to several analyses, nearly 1.9 million self-identified supporters of the “Bolivarian Revolution” abstained, and the number of opposition voters increased by only 343,000 compared to the presidential election of 2013, when the winner was the current president, Nicolas Maduro.

The results of the parliamentary elections were described as a “punishment vote” due to a lack of effective action by the government to combat the economic and social crisis that has worsened since the second half of 2014, when the price of oil—Venezuela’s main and almost its only export—began to plummet. The crisis, according to President Maduro, is the product of an “economic war” orchestrated by private companies and sponsored by countries and international organizations seeking to oust him.

Venezuelan analysts say that the defeat of the ruling party, the Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), was a consequence of this misguided notion of an economic war, the ruling party’s rejection of domestic criticism, including from former Chavista ministers, and a lack of leadership and mobilization on the part of Maduro as compared to late .

This illustrates what the (BTI 2016), which compares governance and policymaking in 129 developing and transition countries, concludes about events of the past years: “What we have come to observe in Venezuela is the exceptional spectacle of a personalistic regime that has lost its personalistic leadership … In such a system, the authority of a leader like Chavez is indispensable to solve conflicts and to maintain stability.” Without it, the report says, the current situation of the South American nation seems unsustainable in the long-term.

President Maduro does not have a clear strategy to address the crises. Instead of assuming responsibility for the issue, he is blaming foreign enemies at every opportunity.

Conflict of powers

The December 6 results have led to a conflict of powers in Venezuela. After the installation of the National Assembly, the Supreme Court allowed a petition by the government to dismiss three opposition members recently elected to the National Assembly. This decision left the opposition without a qualified majority in parliament (112 deputies), which it needs to designate representatives of other government branches and convene a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution. Currently, two of the five judges on the Supreme Court are linked directly to the national government and the PSUV.

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In addition, the government is reluctant to enact any laws promoted by the opposition, and in response, the opposition refuses to approve any requests from the president. In late January 2016, President Maduro issued an “economic emergency decree” that did not receive the necessary approval of parliament but was still declared to be in force by the Supreme Court. The Venezuelan Supreme Court has the power to interpret the constitution and declare whether decisions by the other branches of government are constitutional. As the , the lack of a separation of powers is a fundamental shortcoming of Venezuelan institutions.

National analysts believe that the conflict of powers in the country will deepen in the coming months if both parties do not reach agreements to solve the economic crisis, which may lead the country to social and humanitarian collapse.

Economic imbalances

Venezuela’s economy depends on oil revenue, and it imports 70% of all its consumer food. The current price of Venezuelan oil is around $20 a barrel, but the 2016 budget is based on a $40 benchmark. According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, the country ended 2015 with a general inflation rate of 180.9%, the highest in the world. The (IMF) estimates the rate of inflation to be 275%.

The decrease in foreign exchange income needed for the purchase of raw materials has affected food and medicine sectors, which are now experiencing shortages of up to 70%. In early February, the Venezuelan parliament declared a food emergency and humanitarian crisis, and asked the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to send experts to the country to assess future risks.

The IMF estimates that inflation will spiral to 720% in Venezuela this year, and the economy is expected to contract for the third consecutive year. The situation has brought the possibility of a Venezuelan default into the debate. Yet experts like Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, believe that President Maduro still has a year to reverse the direction of the national economy.

Weisbrot takes into account estimates by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BOA), which put Venezuela’s assets at $60 billion, and he proposes four steps to stabilize the economy: create a system that protects those most vulnerable with food and medicine at affordable prices; unify the three official currency exchange rates, which are 25 times stronger than the unofficial one; remove price controls on gasoline—the cheapest in the world—and other goods; and diversify the economy.

Indeed, on February 17, President Maduro announced some free market reforms that point in the right direction. They include devaluing the Bolivar currency and raising the price of gasoline by as much as 6000%. The head of state also revealed changes to the tax system and expanded controls over food distribution.

However, Venezuelan analysts argue that these reforms are still insufficient and come too late. The new fuel prices, for instance, still do not cover production costs, and Venezuelan petrol will remain the cheapest in the world.

What happens if international oil prices go up?

The BOA dismisses economic recovery in the short-term and predicts that imports will continue to decline regardless of any adjustments of the oil price. It also argues that if exchange rate distortions are not corrected, food shortages and political consequences will increase.

The National Assembly speaker, Henry Ramos Allup, and other opposition leaders have announced plans to oust President Maduro within six months. “In the next few days we will have to present a concrete proposal for the departure of the national disgrace that is this government,” said Ramos Allup in early February.

It seems that Venezuela is in for more troubled times.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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