Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s opponents are betting on the power of the street as they try to force him from office, but their strategy could backfire, reports AFP.
With crisis-racked Venezuela stuck in a downward spiral of hyperinflation, shortages, and violent crime, discontent is on the rise.
Yet the opposition has struggled to get large turnout at its protests—a cornerstone of its strategy to force authorities to allow a referendum on removing Maduro from power by the end of the year.
The notable exception was on September 1, when an anti-Maduro march drew a million people into the streets of Caracas, according an estimate by organizers, who called it the largest rally in decades.
But dozens of other protests in recent months have rallied only a fraction of that.
On Wednesday, for example, the nationwide follow-up to the September 1 march drew numbers in the thousands. Maduro’s supporters staged counter-demonstrations that were just as large.
Small turnout risks feeding into the leftist president’s rhetoric that the opposition coalition behind the referendum drive, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), is an “isolated” elite that does not represent the people.
Analysts say the challenge for the center-right opposition is to mobilize a broad base, including traditional supporters of “Chavismo”—the movement named for Maduro’s late predecessor and mentor, the socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez.
“Protests will have to be massive and sustained over a period of weeks or months,” said analyst Risa Grais-Targow of the New York-based consultancy Eurasia Group.
“And critically, they will have to transcend traditional opposition supporters and include traditional Chavista supporters.”
That is something the fragmented opposition coalition MUD has struggled to do.
An umbrella group whose members span the political spectrum, it leans to the center-right but has been riven by divisions.

‘Busy standing in line’
The peculiarities of the Venezuela crisis also make it difficult to rally big crowds.
The crippling shortages mean Venezuelans have to spend hours in line to buy food and basic goods, hopping from store to store in search of increasingly scarce products ranging from flour to medicine to toilet paper.
There is also frustration with the slow pace of change in a country where Maduro retains a strong grip on the levers of power after 17 years of leftist rule.
For instance, the opposition scored a major victory when it won a landslide in legislative elections in December—only to find itself stymied at every turn by the Supreme Court.
“People are a little disappointed because we haven’t achieved our objective,” said one protester, 21-year-old dentistry student Jose Miguel Villa, at Wednesday’s demonstration in the city of Los Teques, just outside the capital.
“When the marches are over and Maduro’s still there in Miraflores (the presidential palace), people get demotivated. Maybe this strategy isn’t the right one,” he added.
“People are very busy standing in line. If they don’t, they’ll die of hunger.”

Exhaustion and fear
Venezuelan political analyst Benigno Alarcon said there is a risk of triggering an “exhaustion effect” by “abusing” the protest strategy.
Legislative speaker Henry Ramos Allup, a top opposition leader, acknowledged as much.
“It’s not easy to motivate people and put a million people in the street.
And if you use a strategy like that indiscriminately, it tends to have diminishing returns,” he said recently.
Time is of the essence. Opinion polls indicate the opposition would win a recall referendum. But they have to do so by January 10. Otherwise, Maduro would simply transfer power to his hand-picked vice president.
There is an element of fear, as well.
Memories are still fresh of the violence that erupted at pro- and anti-government demonstrations in 2014, leaving 43 people dead.
Maduro waged a forceful crackdown, jailing top opposition leaders on charges of inciting violence.
“The government shows its weapons whenever it can,” said Alexander Guzman, a 64-year-old salesman and Maduro opponent.
He cited heavily armed riot police dispatched to control protests and Maduro’s “collectives”—community groups founded to back “Chavismo” that have sometimes morphed into ad-hoc militias.
“Those things scare people,” Guzman said. “But we have to take the risk. Otherwise, we get nothing.”