Punishing Nicolás Maduro

DESPITE four months of protests, more than 120 deaths and mounting diplomatic pressure, Nicolás Maduro has got away with it. Venezuela’s president has imposed a rigged constituent assembly to replace the elected, opposition-controlled parliament. He is ruling as a dictator, jailing or harassing scores of opponents. This poses a stark question: what, if anything, can be done to restore democracy?

In the short term, the answer is not much. The protests have stopped. Mr Maduro has the opposition where he wants it: split as to whether or not to participate in an overdue election for regional governors next month, organised by the same tame electoral authority that shamelessly inflated the turnout for the constituent assembly vote from under 4m to 8.5m. For now, the main threats to Mr Maduro’s regime come from elsewhere—from outsiders and from its acute shortage of money.