Venezuela, to elections with Maduro's tailored opposition

In the last week, the Venezuelan justice system has created a superlative advantage for Nicolás Maduro's government, which, in the parliamentary elections that are about to take place, will have a like-minded arbitrator and docile opponents. 

The two strongest opposition parties - Democratic Action (AD) and Justice First (PJ) - received a blow between Monday and Tuesday when the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) appointed new directives for these formations, now led by dissidents closer to ruling Chavismo. 

Below are the five keys to the judicial cornering that the opposition has suffered before the National Assembly elections: 

AD, one of Venezuela's longest established groups, and PJ, in which two-time presidential candidate Henrique Capriles is a member, were given a royal knock: their boards of directors were removed from their posts by a decision of the Supreme Court of Justice. 

That means that now the acronym and control of the match is, by judicial decision, in the hands of two ex-militants who were expelled from their matches: Bernabé Gutiérrez will lead AD and José Brito will lead PJ. 

Both have not only been expelled from their formations, but have also been accused of being bribed by the officialdom to put themselves at its service and, perhaps by chance, have quickly moved from the radical discourse with which they claimed the need to put an end to Chavism to a timid call for national reconciliation with harsh criticism of the opposition. 

In addition, the Supreme Court prohibited any action against them and reserved the use of the electoral card and all the emblems or colours of these parties for them alone. That means that, in the next election, voters will go to the polls and see acronyms, colors and logos that they have voted for decades, but they may not know that they have been co-opted by two former militants whom other activists accuse of stealing the parties.

AD is not just an acronym, a few colors and a slogan - "Bread, Land, Work"-, AD is a whole institution of Venezuelan politics, one of the old axes of the bipartisanism and political school of many of the leaders who today raise their voices in the Caribbean country. 

The organizational capacity of this party, born in 1941 and led for years by the iconic and two-time president Carlos Andrés Pérez, is reflected not only in Caracas but in a good part of the most remote and isolated regions of Venezuela. 

Being part of AD, that is, being "adeco", is for many Venezuelans of a certain age and numerous young people an emblem, a symbol of family identity and a heritage of struggle, since they were persecuted with special cruelty during the military dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez. 

In addition, they are the reference point for the Socialist International in Venezuela and one of their vice-presidents is Henry Ramos Allup, leader of AD. 

Other parties suffered the same judicial lynching as Patria Para Todos (PPT) and Podemos, two formations that supported the so-called Bolivarian revolution in the first decade and later decided to oppose it. This goal of going against the government could not be achieved, as the TSJ once again made sure that the electoral symbols of these parties remained in the hands of Chavist sympathizers. 

There are also the cases of Bandera Roja, MIN-Unidad and the People's Electoral Movement (MEP), small organizations that ended up, sentence by sentence, led by politicians less uncomfortable for the government. 

The political organization of the Venezuelan citizenry against the government cannot be understood without the coalition known as G-4, composed of the four major parties opposed to Chavism: AD, Volad Popular (VP), PJ and the also social-democratic Un Nuevo Tiempo (UNT). Now, with the annulment of AD and PJ, plus the foreseeable sentence against VP - of Leopoldo López and Juan Guaidó - the group is de facto disarticulated and the opposition faces a great challenge, the search for a new way of organizing itself without the muscle that parties represent, both within Venezuela and in the world. 

The two-party system, which took turns in power between 1958 and 1998, and was the cause of all the ills of the last century in the eyes of Chavism, was mortally wounded in 2015, when the Supreme Court of Justice appointed a new board of directors for the Social Christians of the Independent Political Electoral Organization Committee (Copei), the other link that together with AD formed the traditional political bifurcation in the country. 

Since then, the Christian Social Party has lost most of its visibility and has only two representatives in Parliament. As with AD, in Venezuela there are still people who say they are "copeyanas" without this translating into consistent electoral support, but with affections that go back generations. 

The opposition has tried to simplify the political struggle with a new two-party system consisting of all those who support Chavism and all those who are against it. With this eagerness they created a unitary card that became the most voted option in history in the legislative elections of 2015 and meant a resounding defeat of Chavism in the National Assembly. Three years later, the TSJ eliminated that card and is sure to eliminate uncomfortable rivals who proved it five years ago. 

The Supreme Court has asked several times to validate and revalidate the political organizations that are against Chavism, and for this it has set as a condition the collection of signatures, a requirement that several parties failed to comply with because they considered it to be illegal. Obstacles, judicial decisions and referees suspected of being biased, a sum that may show the triumphant, somewhat smoothed out, return of Chavism to Parliament.