What is to be done in Venezuela?

BOTH the timing and the presentation were inauspicious. On October 24th Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s embattled president, made an unscheduled call on Pope Francis. Meanwhile, in Caracas, a papal envoy announced that the Vatican had agreed to co-sponsor talks between the government and the opposition. The news came just days after the government-controlled electoral authority suspended—and perhaps cancelled—the referendum to oust Mr Maduro that the opposition seeks and the constitution allows. The opposition, which had long sought papal mediation, was at first taken aback when it came.

The talks, which also involve the South American Union (Unasur), were widely written off even before they began, under the aegis of Claudio Maria Celli, an experienced Vatican diplomat, on October 30th. In fact, they offer the only chance of a swift and peaceful return to constitutional rule in Venezuela.

That is urgent. Since replacing the late Hugo Chávez in 2013, Mr Maduro has presided over the dissolution of his country. His state-socialist economic policies, combined with lower oil prices, have produced a savage slump: according to the IMF, by the end of this year the economy will be 20% smaller than in 2013. Inflation is surging. Prolonged shortages of basic goods are causing palpable hunger. Infant mortality is rising sharply.

The people have turned against the regime. In December the opposition won an election for the national assembly. Polls show that 80% of respondents want a change and more than 60% would vote to recall the president. Mr Maduro, a bovine figure, is a prisoner of Chávez’s ghost. He sees himself as the guardian of his mentor’s “revolution”. Rather than share power, he has slid into dictatorship. He rules by decree, ignoring the assembly. Many analysts think his plan is to tough it out until his term ends in 2019.

Can he get away with it? Twice in the past two months the opposition has organised vast demonstrations to press for the recall referendum. But the regime retains a monopoly of hard power. In what a foreign security analyst calls “a creeping military coup”, Mr Maduro has turned many government responsibilities, including food distribution, over to the armed forces. He uses selective repression to intimidate opponents. According to the Venezuelan Penal Forum, an NGO, there are more than 100 political prisoners.

Radicals in the opposition, among them Leopoldo López, a prisoner since 2014, trust in further mass protests. Their implicit strategy is to force the army to choose either to fire on unarmed demonstrators or to break with the regime. That is risky. A descent into violence would help neither the opposition nor the country. Many Washington think-tankers are huffing and puffing for the United States to take tougher action. It is hard to see that helping. In 2015 it imposed sanctions on several Venezuelan officials; Mr Maduro milked the episode for nationalist propaganda.

Since 2014 he has had desultory conversations with the opposition, through Unasur, whose secretary-general, Ernesto Samper, is sympathetic to chavismo. The opposition, rightly, suspects that Mr Maduro used this “dialogue” to play for time. This week it called off a protest march after the government released five political prisoners. But Mr López’s party and others are suspicious of the talks. Mr Maduro’s aim may be to use them to divide the opposition.

That Unasur is still at the table obscures the fact that the Vatican’s involvement changes the nature of the negotiations. For the first time, the two sides have sat down to discuss an agenda. This includes restoring the rule of law, human rights (read, releasing all political prisoners), the economy and the electoral timetable. Thomas Shannon, an American diplomat, visited Caracas this week to back the talks. By agreeing to intervene in Venezuela at last, Pope Francis has put his prestige on the line.

The negotiations will not be easy. The aim should be to broker a transition that would see Mr Maduro restore constitutional rule or be replaced, either through an early election or by a national-unity government. Despite public pledges of loyalty, much of the army wants a transition. And Mr Maduro is running out of cash. The government faces debt payments of $13bn over the next year, while its international reserves have sunk to just $10.9bn (mainly in gold). The constitution requires the assembly to approve increases in the debt limit. Investors are likely to insist on that. Mr Maduro’s bargaining position is less impregnable than it looks. That is why the talks offer the best hope of saving Venezuela.