ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the type of transition from democratic rule that can be labeled as "Opposition takeover". The two typical cases chosen to illustrate this model are Venezuela and Gambia. The contextual conditions highlighted for Venezuela describe a context marked by a lack of economic development along with an ethnolinguistically fractionalized society. Together with the economic dimension, the racial issue therefore appears to be a key structural element for understanding the evolution of Venezuela's political regime. Accion Democratica (AD) and Comite de Organization Politica Electoral Independiente (COPEI) pervasively controlled the entire state apparatus through political patronage and clientelism, ensuring judicial impunity for its members and maintaining political consensus through social policies funded by oil revenues. The context in the Gambia is marked by a lack of economic development along with the existence of ethnolinguistic fractionalization in the population. The Gambia's problems were structural: a poor country, predominantly agricultural and extremely dependent on fluctuations of agricultural commodity prices on international markets.
