The impasse over the selection of the crucial 'fifth man' for Venezuela's new electoral council may end up being settled by a deal between the pro-government legislators and their arch-enemies of Acción Democrática (AD), the only one of the 'traditional' parties to have retained a respectable following.
Their main motivation is to prevent the issue from being handed over to the supreme court, which is mandated if congress fails to make up its mind. The court has already formally requested the names of the 86 candidates nominated for the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE), a clear sign that its patience has almost run out.
The word is out that the supreme court's constitutional panel will issue on 15 July an ultimatum to the assembly, giving it 10 days to come up with the appointments of the CNE's five titular members and 10 alternates.
Deadlock explained. Actually, government and opposition have agreed to share out equally the 10 alternate posts and four of the titular ones. They have been stuck for weeks on the appointment of the tie-breaking fifth titular member.
This is chiefly because the opposition have so far remained committed to acting as a single bloc, which allows the smaller parties to hold the rest hostage. The pro-government bloc needs opposition agreement, because it only has 51% of the seats in the national assembly, and these appointments require approval by a two-thirds' majority.
It does not, however, need all of the opposition vote. If, for example, it were to reach agreement with AD, which has 20% of the seats, the problem would be solved.
Ditching unity. Last week AD congressman Edgar Zambrano (vice-president of the commission that selected the 86 nominees), said that the larger opposition groups had concluded that they could no longer aspire to 'monolithic unity'.
This may have been intended to scare the dissenters within the opposition. If so, it does not yet seem to have worked. On the other hand, the vice-president of the assembly, Ricardo Gutiérrez, has served notice that at the regular session on 8 July a motion will be tabled to convene a special session with the purpose of appointing the new CNE before the weekend.
The deal might contain an element of agreeing to disagree over the 'fifth man': it now appears perfectly feasible to leave only that appointment up to the supreme court. The constitutional text empowers the court to 'remedy the omissions' of the assembly; it does not oblige it to take over the appointment of the entire CNE if only one name is missing.
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