The colour of the opposition in Venezuela, at the moment, is sky blue. On Sunday, hundreds of supporters of Maria Corina Machado wore it — the shade of her Vente Venezuela party — as they rode motorcycles through Caracas’s main avenues, honking horns and waving Venezuelan flags. Similar demonstrations were held in Valencia, Maracaibo and Merida. The demands, according to Al Jazeera, were twofold: Machado’s safe return, and presidential elections that could produce a democratic transition.
Machado, a Nobel laureate, is living in exile, and according to Al Jazeera her plans to return have been spoiled multiple times. CBS News reported last week that she was prevented from returning from exile in Panama, with a source from her party telling AFP she was blocked from entering the country three times in 24 hours.
The situation has an odd asymmetry to it. Also on Sunday, AFP reported, Claudia Macero, an opposition activist close to Machado, returned from exile to a hero’s welcome, landing at Simón Bolívar international airport in Maiquetía, the airport that serves Caracas. So the airport is open. People associated with the movement can fly in and be greeted by relatives and cheering crowds. The movement’s leader, apparently, cannot.
Which is, in its way, a precise statement of where things stand. The government will tolerate the opposition’s aides arriving, and the opposition’s supporters riding through the capital on motorcycles in matching shirts, because neither changes who holds power. Machado does — or at least, that is the working theory on both sides of the barricade, which is why her return keeps being blocked and why the rallies keep demanding it. The elections the crowds were asking for would settle the question; the fact that they have to ask tells you the current answer.