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[W]ith the Dec. 6 legislative elections approaching, candidates for the ruling United Socialist Party are trailing by 25 to 30 percentage points, according to a batch of opinion polls. 

What that means for Venezuela as a whole is less clear. The country's opposition is a 27-party pastiche, riven by feuding and one-upmanship. That's one reason 30 percent of voters say they like neither the ruling party nor the Democratic Unity Roundtable, the main opposition bloc. But while there's little love lost for Maduro, 58 percent of Venezuelans still have a soft spot for his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the charismatic founder of the Bolivarian revolution whose death from cancer in 2013 threw the country into despair. [...]

Despite the lopsided playing field, challengers to Venezuela's 16-year experiment in "21st-century socialism" have never been so close to gaining real power. Political analysts say their magic number is 18 percent -- the margin they need in order to win two-thirds of the seats in the National Assembly and have enough to change Venezuela's constitution, Francisco Rodriguez, chief Andean economist for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said last week in New York.

But even a 12-percent margin, he said, would hand Maduro's foes three-fifths of the 167-member chamber, enough to grant -- or deny -- the president the power to rule by decree in an emergency.

And even a simple majority of 84 seats would give opposition lawmakers plenty of clout to push for a recall referendum next year, which could mark the beginning of the end of Maduro's hapless regime and, possibly, of Chavismo as well.

So how will they react if voters give them the nod? Granted, the National Assembly has not really been in charge since the days of Chavez. Lawmakers can veto the national budget, but Venezuela's central bank still answers to the president, opposition leader Diego Arria told me.

A revived legislature could still be a force for restoring democracy. For one, lawmakers could raise a stink about the plight of political prisoners, including opposition firebrand Leopoldo Lopez, who was sentenced to more than 13 years in jail in what was widely regarded as little more than a show trial.

Rescuing the economy will be harder. Venezuela's gross domestic product is set to shrink 10 percent this year, and inflation will hit 159 percent. That's a toxic legacy for anyone to inherit, and consumers who have faced epic queues to buy eggs and medicine may not be placated by the presence of new management in the congress.

"All candidates know the country needs to introduce austerity measures to right the economy. But no one wants to be blamed for implementing them," said Javier Corrales, a Latin America scholar at Amherst College. "They're not thinking beyond December 6."

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