The best outcome for Venezuela, in the troubling circumstances of Caracas this weekend, is for the tens of thousands of protesters who swarmed the streets to be granted their wish. If the end were nigh for the benighted regime of Nicolás Maduro, who has led his country into the abyss since 2013, then it could not come a moment too soon.
There is one legitimate way that Mr Maduro, who holds office after fraudulent elections last May, could respond. He could call an immediate general election and seek to defeat Juan Guaidó who has declared himself the interim president, at the ballot box. This is the demand made by the governments in Berlin, Paris and Madrid, which has been echoed and endorsed by Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary.
The European capitals gave Mr Maduro eight days to call an election or else they would give official recognition to Mr Guaidó as the legitimate leader of his nation. That period has now elapsed.
Mr Maduro still has powerful supporters, both within and without Venezuela. The military remains, for the moment, loyal although there are plenty of reports of that loyalty beginning to crack and further defections could be crucial. Mr Maduro can also rely on the support of his usual international allies, Russia and China, and, for what the inclusion is worth, the indulgent complicity of the British Labour Party.
All the vocal Maduro supporters — in Venezuela and elsewhere — hang a lot of their hostility on their ideological objection to a United States they regard as a “gringo empire”.
The walls may well be coming in for Mr Maduro. If the numbers on the streets and the diplomatic pressure from outside are not irresistible, he will surely not be able to stay in post if the will to resist subsides inside his own state. In recent demonstrations, riot police permitted protesters to assemble rather than disperse them. Mr Maduro has himself offered parliamentary — rather than presidential — elections in a sign that his resolve may be weakening.
Foreign powers do retain options. The existing financial sanctions can be continued and strengthened. President Trump, who has refused Mr Maduro’s request for a meeting, has said that he reserves the right to seek a military solution but it is to be hoped that the disaster of Venezuela need not go that far. This process has already been violent enough. There are credible reports that security forces shot at least 20 people during the protest and that more than 300 have been detained.
The obviously preferable course is for Mr Maduro to read the runes. The protesters on the streets presage the end of Venezuela’s economically disastrous experiment with populist socialism. He should do two things at once. The first would be to permit entry to humanitarian imports from Colombia and Brazil, which he has previously denied on the grounds that it was the prelude to military intervention from America.
The second and most important act would be to call a presidential election so that his rule can be tested where it ought to be, in a fair test of public opinion. It is a notable feature of autocratic governments that they like to clothe themselves in the garb of democratic politics.
The governments of the left in Venezuela began with the finest of intentions, to put politics at the service of the poor. Their attempt has proved to be a calamity and, worse, a danger. All there is left is for Mr Maduro to vacate voluntarily the office he has disgraced.
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