Venezuela’s opposition alliance won a majority in Congress for the first time in 16 years as an unprecedented recession and a collapse in the bolivar turned voters against the populist policies of President Nicolas Maduro.
Preliminary results gave the opposition at least 99 of the 167 seats in the National Assembly, while the government’s ruling socialist party took at least 46, electoral council president Tibisay Lucena said Monday. Twenty-two seats are still to be awarded.
A qualified majority of three-fifths or two-thirds would grant the opposition more powers to challenge Maduro and overturn policies that have fueled the world’s fastest inflation and stoked shortages of essential items.
The economy is expected to contract 10 percent this year by the International Monetary Fund, while economists polled by Bloomberg see prices rising about 124 percent.
Still, the opposition will struggle to overturn policies as Maduro remains president and the Supreme Court and central bank are packed with his appointees.
Since the late Hugo Chavez swept into power in 1999, the opposition has never held a branch of government.
“Dialogue among all parties in Venezuela is necessary to address the social and economic challenges facing the country, and the United States stands ready to support such a dialogue together with others in the international community,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said.
Maduro urged his supporters to accept Sunday’s results, even as he recalled the long history of U.S.-supported coups in Latin America and blamed the “circumstantial” loss on a right-wing “counterrevolution” trying to sabotage Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy and destabilize the government.
The result is another blow to South America’s block of left leaning leaders, ushered in following Chavez’s rise to power.
