I just made this post on another message board, so I figured I'd add it here too in case anybody is interested.
I have done a lot of my research on (and in) Venezuela and follow this situation relatively closely. The sad fact is that nobody really knows what will happen. There are really four ways out of the current situation:
1. The opposition triggers the constitutional provision to hold a referendum to recall Maduro and the government allows them to hold it before Jan 10, 2017. If that happens, Maduro will almost certainly be recalled, a new presidential election will be held within 30 days, and the opposition candidate - most likely Henrique Capriles or Leopoldo Lopez (if he gets out of prison) - will almost certainly win. The recall referendum process is already underway. But the big problem is that there are many different stages (multiple processes of gathering and verifying signatures, etc) and, if the government can throw enough institutional obstacles in the way, such that the referendum occurs after Jan 10, 2017 (the midpoint of Maduro's term by some sketchy calculations), then the result will not be a new election but rather the sitting Vice President Aristobulo Isturiz taking power. That doesn't do anything for the opposition as Isturiz and Maduro are cut from the exact same cloth, both members of the ultra-left civilian wing of the Bolivarian Movement.
2. There is a popular uprising to oust the Maduro government. This could happen if the food shortages get bad enough, if the government does something particularly egregious to halt or delay the recall referendum, if the country's power problems intensify, or due to any number of other precipitating events. But there are a number of reasons to be skeptical about this happening. First, despite all he has done to absolutely light the country on fire, Maduro's approval rating this year has oscillated between about 25-33%, which may not sound very good but is actually higher than a number of other South American presidents. Essentially, the country is so insanely polarized that there is a hard core Chavista contingent that is likely to defend Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution no matter what. And the presence of that 25-33% of the country provides a real bulwark against a mass uprising. Second, the opposition has tried to oust the government through mass mobilization or contentious action before - most notably during the 2002 coup, but also in the oil strike of early 2003 and the La Salida protests of 2014 - and failed to do so. The opposition took a reputational hit from those actions and there are groups within the opposition that want nothing to do with trying to organize a mass uprising, preferring to wait for the referendum process to play out or even the 2018 presidential elections. Finally, the government has shown increased willingness to use repression through the security forces to control mass mobilization. That can also backfire, and lead to more mobilization, but it also represents a deterrent that might lead people to think twice about participating in a mass movement toward Miraflores Palace.
3. There is a military coup against the Maduro government, perhaps occurring in tandem with a mass uprising or some other controversial event. This could happen if sectors within the military perceive the country's situation as so bad that displacing (and scapegoating) the Maduro government becomes their own best course of action. The problem with this scenario is that the military (at least at the level of high ranking officers) is almost 100% Bolivarian at this point. From its earliest days, the Bolivarian coalition at the elite level was a marriage between unscrupulous military officers and radical, left-wing civilians. For most of the Chavez years, the balance between these two was maintained by a very cynical pact: The left-wing civilians got to make policy and implement their vision of "Socialism in the 21st Century," but the highly interventionist economic model created massive opportunities for corruption and patronage and prominent military figures - or guys with backgrounds and deep connections in the military establishment - were given positions that allowed them to exploit the corruption opportunities to the fullest. At the same time, Chavez purged officers from the military with questionable political sympathies while also greatly expanding the number of generals, using these appointments as patronage and filing the ranks with loyalists. So there are a great many influential people within the Venezuelan military establishment with a huge amount to lose from a regime change, particularly if a new opposition-led government decides to investigate how billions and billions of dollars disappeared from the country over the years. It may be the case that the only way a deal could be struck between the opposition and the military is if the former guarantees that a new government will take a hands off approach to the military and that there will be no investigations of malfeasance under the previous government. But that is something that many opposition figures have little interest in doing and, even if they did, it would be difficult to credibly commit to that course of action.
4. The government rides out the storm by delaying the recall referendum, repressing protests against whatever shady actions it needs to take to achieve that delay, and perhaps convincing the opposition to wait until the 2018 presidential election to really contest power. This seems pretty unlikely right now but it can't be ruled out. Oil has moved up toward $50, which gives them a bit more room for maneuver economically. There are still a million political and economic landmines over the next year, however, including the real possibility of a default at some point. In some sense, the government's best hope may be some kind of miraculous event on the other side of the globe that disrupts oil production, sending prices much higher, and allowing them to scrape through the next six months. That is probably what Maduro dreams about at night.
For anybody who wants to follow the situation in Venezuela, I highly recommend
Caracas Chronicles as an English language news source. The site is run by an acquaintance of mine but I'm not just hawking it. They have done really great reporting and brief news analysis on the country for over a decade.
Hoisted on my own petard