Reasons to celebrate

AS THE final results of the parliamentary election on December 6th came in—two days after the vote—Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, was at an army barracks in Caracas preparing for his weekly television show, “In Contact with Maduro”. Venezuela’s presidents have been making hours-long broadcasts since the late Hugo Chávez, his charismatic predecessor, took power in 1999. Mr Maduro’s appearance from the Montaña barracks, a fortified mock castle where Chávez’s body now lies, was the first to follow an election defeat.

It was a crushing one. Venezuelans voted furiously against the left-wing regime and for an opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity alliance (MUD), that is determined to bring its increasingly authoritarian and incompetent rule to an end. Nearly three-quarters of the electorate turned out, some despite fears that their ballots would not be secret. The MUD won the popular vote by a margin of 15 percentage points. It captured just over two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly, which gives it broad powers to challenge the government. Even the district of 23 de Enero, the bastion of chavismo where Mr Maduro made his broadcast, fell to the opposition.