Tribuna Libre » Life After Chávez por Jackson Diehl, Washington Post

Tribuna Libre » Life After Chávez por Jackson Diehl, Washington Post

"The difference is that the united opposition is not trying to overthrow Chávez but to build something for November 2012,” when the next presidential election is scheduled, says Teodoro Petkoff, the longtime leader of Venezuela’s democratic left, who visited Washington recently. “This is the long-term construction of an alternative.”

Petkoff, who began his own career as a leftist guerrilla, is now, at 76, one of the foremost advocates of a democratic solution to the political polarization and growing civil disorder touched off by Chávez. As he sees it, the Venezuelan opposition has gone through three stages since Chávez took office: first plotting his undemocratic ouster, then sullenly and foolishly boycotting elections — which allowed the president to install his followers in every seat of Congress and 23 of the 24 state governorships.

Now, boosted by the defeat of the constitution — which it, too, did not expect — the opposition at last is focusing on elections, beginning with November’s rerun of the governors. Unified opposition candidates and platforms are planned; Petkoff thinks there’s a chance the anti-Chávez forces could take power in Caracas and up to seven other states. That would probably be a fatal blow to Chávez’s lingering hopes of converting Venezuela into a Cuba — and a first step toward electing a different president in 2012."