US officials: Venezuelan president's hold on power weakening

Since December, when the opposition won legislative elections by a landslide, the country has been wracked by growing political confrontation at a time of triple-digit inflation, widespread food shortages and almost daily hours-long blackouts across much of the nation.

[...] the analysis, based on intelligence they did not share, points to a period of potentially violent political turmoil that will have consequences for international bondholders, oil markets and Venezuela's neighbors, especially Colombia.

The officials said the main concern for the Obama administration is that the deep political divisions and mounting economic hardships could trigger mayhem of the sort that Caracas experienced in 1989, when at least 300 people were killed during riots, looting and clashes with police against the backdrop of another collapse in oil prices.

The officials said they've seen no evidence a military coup is in the works and say it would be unlikely to succeed, but they cautioned that nobody envisioned in 1992 that an unknown junior officer named Hugo Chavez would lead a barracks uprising — an event that made him famous and eventually led to his election as president.

The U.S. officials said their analysis indicates authorities are trying to delay — but possibly not block — a recall referendum against Maduro by dragging out the process of validating millions of signatures of Venezuelans seeking the president's ouster.