Congratulations to the brave leaders of Venezuela's opposition, who truly are unappreciated democratic heroes. Free Leopoldo Lopez!
(One correction: the opposition is not made up just of conservative and moderate parties, as this piece alleges. Some oppositionists in Venezuela are leftists too who just happen to hate Chavez, Maduro, and their warped legacy. One of the reasons why Chavez succeeded so easily was the public was conditioned for years to accept statist and socialistic public policy.)
Hard to believe anyone would vote for his PSUV party after the irreparable damage it has done to that country. But the fact is, no matter how bad a national situation gets, there are some who benefit from the status quo. Venezuelans had voted for socialism for years, and they got it good and hard.
President Nicolas Maduro will be forced to govern with a hostile National Assembly. He will ignore it, undermine it, or disband it, or set up a parallel "people's assembly." His minions will assault opposition legislators as they try to enter the building. We have seen this play out before.
Andres Oppenheimer spells out Maduro's possible next steps here: What will Maduro do next? Best line of the piece:
it's time for Latin America's diplomatic community to stop behaving like a mutual protection society for repressive regimes.The Latin American republics band together to defend its presidents, no matter what criminal behavior they are up to. (See the sad policy on Honduras in 2009.) I would add that it is time for the US to recognize that democracy is not defined by an "elected" president.
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