By almost any objective measure, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is heading for a fall. The country’s economy is a shambles; even Bolivia, long South America's poorest nation, is outperforming Venezuela. Some 89 percent of Venezuelans say the country is faring badly or horribly. And with 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.

This paradox poses some special challenges for Venezuela's aspiring democrats. First, they must win a contest in which the rules are stacked against them: In 2010, opposition candidates captured more than half the popular vote but -- thanks to gerrymandering, rules-rigging and overrepresentation of pro-government rural regions -- ended up with around 40 percent of the seats in the National Assembly.

This time may be different, however. Yes, Maduro has vetoed independent election observers and vowed he'll never surrender the revolution to apostates. But from a government bleeding popularity and poisoned by intrigue and rivalries, that sounds more like Bolivarian blunderbuss than a credible threat.