Venezuela is ruled by an outlaw regime that has replaced its falling oil revenues with income from drug trafficking, illegal mining and gasoline smuggling, Moya-Ocampos said. That income “makes it possible to maintain Maduro in power,” he added.
And Maduro will remain in power “unless the military stops supporting him or a regional force helps in some way to reestablish constitutional and democratic order in Venezuela.”
The economic crisis and the international pressures all but guarantee that 2019 will be a year of great turbulence. On one side, the growing international rejection of Maduro will consolidate with his swearing-in. The United States will likely brand Venezuela as a government that promotes terrorism because of its tight connections to Colombia’s National Liberation Army guerrillas and Hezbollah.
But domestic pressures are also expected to tighten as the economy continues to deteriorate. That does not mean that new waves of protests will automatically lead to a regime change in the next year. Maduro has survived massive protests in the past and has been preparing to do it again.
“The year 2019 will be one of more and more protests. But the stronger the protests, the stronger the repression,” said Moya-Ocampos.
The future will depend, he added, on what proportion of the armed forces will continue supporting Maduro on his road to a Castro-styled dictatorship, or if at some point they will decide to stop supporting him.
Venezuelans had a brutal year. The outlook for 2019 isn’t any better, experts say.