No way out?
A military protest and a frustrated opposition
SINCE a failed coup attempt last April against President Hugo Chavez, it has not always been easy to have sympathy for Venezuela's squabbling opposition—and the outside world has shown little. Yet the opposition argues that it is in a genuine bind: if it tries to play by constitutional rules, the government reacts by moving the goalposts. But if it responds to Mr Chavez's violations of his own charter by invoking the constitutional right to rebellion, this is condemned, at home and abroad, as coup-mongering.
This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline “No way out?”
From the October 26th 2002 edition
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