regular political opposition, that is not Chavista: No. They are weak, fragmented, quarreling and never inspired enough support. They couldn't even agree on a common electoral strategy, when elections were to some degree meaningful. Whenever they got dangerous to the regime, they were harassed and put in jail. They are certainly not worse than Maduro. Thats an insane thing to say. That said, they are also not great. Some of them are posh upper-class guys, who don't speak the language of the people and who struggle to connect with them. Many of them are the leftover of politics pre-Chavez, which doesn't necessarily make them particularly popular outside their own narrow base. They are not some kind of right-wing paramilitaries. Most of them are social-democrats, centrists or liberals (incompetent and/or corrupt ones, but thats just normal in LA). Chavismo monopolised mass-based politics and never allowed any new potential rival to become popular.
When people started to resist on the streets, the regimes shot them. We saw that and nobody has the stomach or organisational capabilities to go down this path again. The HRW report, that I previously posted, also highlights just how ruthless the regime is, when it comes to the suppressing any opposition. The people who are suffering most, are now fleeing the country in millions and that alleviates pressure on the regime.
Their is always the possibility, that people from within Chavismo could try to replace Maduro with someone who shows a bit more pragmatism. It never happened and I don't expect it now, but who knows. I don't think anyone understands the inner circles of power sufficiently to say much about this with any degree of certainty.
