Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó has called for an investigation into who shot dead one of his supporters in the May Day protest in Caracas on Monday. Perversely, this is a hopeful sign in this struggling society. Though there were earlier slayings of opposition protesters, Guaidó’s demand for an enquiry into this latest death shows that this is a dangerous confrontation that has yet to tip over into the levels of violence, when deaths on either side, no longer merit proper concern and attention.

As the protests against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro continue to mount, the opposition leader, whose self-declaration as president has been widely recognized by outside countries, with the notable exceptions of Russia and China, shows he is backing the rule of law.

Power does appear to be slipping away from the Maduro administration. Its far-left economic policies and administrative incompetence, if not indeed corruption, have pauperized a country which ought to be prospering thanks to its superabundant oil reserves. Polls, though questionable, nevertheless show that 80 percent of Venezuelans want Maduro to go. Moreover, it is generally accepted that last year’s vote that re-elected him as president was a fix. Unable to work with the country’s elected parliament, led by Guaidó, Maduro created a parallel assembly which he stuffed with placemen. This exacerbated the political stalemate and polarized debate. But in truth, there has been little to debate as the economy continued to tank and living standards, even for Maduro’s core supporters among the poor, have gone through the floor.

On Monday Guaidó put out a video in which he was shown with members of the armed forces who have come over to his side. Standing with him was another opposition leader, Leopoldo López who had been under closely-guarded house arrest for the last two years. This made clear that the soldiers imprisoning him had stepped aside. Guaidó called on all the military to come over to him.

Some senior commanders, including most recently, the head of intelligence, have at the very least expressed deep concern at the government’s response to the rising civil unrest. Middle-ranking and junior commanders are more openly unhappy at being put in a defensive line around an unpopular administration. Conscripts, who must serve 30 months, are even less likely to be content, given that they see their families struggling to get by in a non-functioning economy.

Ultimately, if commanders cannot be sure of their own men, then the game is up for the government.

Maduro inherited the mantle of the charismatic paratroop sergeant Hugo Chavez, who was elected to power in 1998 on a tidal wave of popular support. His radical economic reforms tackled significant disparities in wealth, but his program of nationalization and subsequent incompetent running of the key oil industry, meant his government could no longer afford generous subsidies and handouts to the poor. Had he not died in 1998, Chavez might have acted to halt the decline.

Maduro, a far less able politician, has stuck to an unsustainable and ruinous economic course. He has made almost no good decisions. But he could earn the gratitude of his people by abandoning his attempt to tough it out and avoid the civil strife and bloodshed that now appear inevitable. Exile, maybe in Moscow, looks the best option for his country.