Sep 29, 2026 · 17 min · 8 segments
Episode 25 | Why did Nicolás Maduro survive Venezuela’s economic collapse and the mass protests of 2017? In this episode, we examine the two strategies that kept him in power: control over the…
There were good reasons to believe that 2017 might bring a political transition.
The opposition had demonstrated that it could organize and defeat Chavismo at the ballot box.
Its victory in the 2015 parliamentary election was undeniable.
Independent journalists were still exposing abuses despite censorship.
Opposition leaders could mobilize enormous crowds.
International pressure was growing.
Then Luis Ortega Díaz publicly denounced the Supreme Court's attack on the National Assembly.
A senior official had broken ranks.
Perhaps others were to follow.
But an authoritarian regime doesn't fall simply because enough people want it gone.
Public pressure has to change the behavior of the people who keep it in power.
Officials have to refuse orders, withdraw support, or accept a negotiated transfer of authority.
And a fracture inside the government only becomes decisive if it reaches people with the power to act on it.
Ortega could denounce the constitutional rupture.
She could order investigations.
Her position mattered enormously.
But she didn't command the National Guard.
The government could lose her support and still send soldiers into the streets.
That was the problem facing the opposition.
It had shown that the country wanted change, but it hadn't broken the coalition capable of preventing it.
There were good reasons to believe that 2017 might bring a political transition.
The opposition had demonstrated that it could organize and defeat Chavismo at the ballot box.
Its victory in the 2015 parliamentary election was undeniable.
Independent journalists were still exposing abuses despite censorship.
Opposition leaders could mobilize enormous crowds.
International pressure was growing.
Then Luis Ortega Díaz publicly denounced the Supreme Court's attack on the National Assembly.
A senior official had broken ranks.
Perhaps others were to follow.
But an authoritarian regime doesn't fall simply because enough people want it gone.
Public pressure has to change the behavior of the people who keep it in power.
Officials have to refuse orders, withdraw support, or accept a negotiated transfer of authority.
And a fracture inside the government only becomes decisive if it reaches people with the power to act on it.
Ortega could denounce the constitutional rupture.
She could order investigations.
Her position mattered enormously.
But she didn't command the National Guard.
The government could lose her support and still send soldiers into the streets.
That was the problem facing the opposition.
It had shown that the country wanted change, but it hadn't broken the coalition capable of preventing it.
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