Venezuela’s ruling socialists face defeat at polls amid unrest and chaos

Battered by shortages, roaring inflation and spiralling crime, voters in Venezuela are expected to deliver a resounding rebuke to the ruling party of President Nicolas Maduro in parliamentary elections on Sunday, challenging the socialist model that has driven the once-wealthy nation to the edge of ruin.

Victory for the opposition, which coalesced in advance of polling to form the Democratic Unity alliance, or MUD, would represent the first major electoral setback for the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) since it took power under the charismatic leadership of the late Hugo Chavez in 1999.

With most opinion surveys showing MUD with a double-digit lead, few doubt that humiliation of some degree is nigh for Mr Maduro, a former bus driver who narrowly won the presidency after Chavez’s death from cancer two years ago. But the scale of the opposition’s win will be key, and observers fear the government will attempt to rig the election with few international monitors in place.

Were it to win to a two-thirds majority– 111 seats of the 167-strong legislature – the opposition could begin not only to reverse government policy and repopulate key institutions such as the supreme court but also potentially launch a recall vote on Mr Maduro, whose term is due to run until 2019.

It is drama that has the entire country on edge, amid fears of renewed unrest and violence whatever the outcome. A disastrous showing for the “Chavismo” movement could trigger a crackdown from the government. On the other hand, if the opposition fails to do as well as expected, its supporters may smell fraud and take to the streets as they did in early 2014, when protests led to 43 deaths.

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The uncertainty has brought daily life across the country to a halt, residents say. “The supermarkets are even madder than usual. People are buying whatever they can find just in case, so it’s been chaos,” said Brenda Colminares, a reporter in Caracas. “Anything that has a government fixed price has gone. They can’t been seen and no one expects to see them until January now. And there are lines everywhere to fill your car with petrol. This weekend it will probably be even worse.”

It is economic deprivation – everything from milk, condoms and basic medicines are almost impossible to buy – created by mismanagement and worsened by the collapse of the oil market that has turned so many voters against Mr Maduro. It doesn’t help that he has none of the political persuasiveness that propelled Chavez to power and made him almost invincible. Even in one-time “Chavista” strongholds, such as the slums that drape the hills around Caracas, patience appears to have been exhausted.

A reversal for Mr Maduro would signal a further ebbing of the leftist tide across Latin America. Venezuela has had its bonds weaken with Cuba as the island has turned its focus towards rapprochement with Washington. In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff is threatened with impeachment. And two weeks ago, voters in Argentina chose Mauricio Macri, a fiscal conservative, as the new President, snubbing the party of President Cristina Kirchner whose second term ends next week.

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Scorned by middle-class voters in Caracas as “Maburro” – “burro” is donkey in Spanish – the President has campaigned vigorously across the nation, evoking the prospect of mayhem if his party loses control of the assembly, vowing never to “surrender the revolution” and issuing his own warnings of unrest on the streets if voters forsake him.

“Imagine if they dominated the National Assembly. I wouldn’t allow it, I swear. I wouldn’t let my hands be tied by anyone. I’d take to the street with the people,” he said at one rally this week. “If the hardcore right-wingers win on 6 December, prepare for chaos, violence and protests that overwhelm this country.”

For its part, the opposition has complained of harassment of its candidates. Tensions spiked last week when one of its candidates was killed at a campaign rally. In the meantime, it is spinning mystique out of its best-known leader, Leopoldo Lopez, who has been imprisoned by the government since the 2014 protests. After Mr Lopez’s conviction three months ago for “inciting violence”, one of the prosecutors fled for Miami and went on the record claiming that evidence against Mr Lopez had been fabricated – a claim denied by the country’s attorney-general.