In Venezuela, where 2015 ended on grenade blasts alongside fireworks, the start of the new year promises an explosive showdown as an opposition-led legislature is sworn in on Tuesday. Incoming lawmakers are on edge in Latin America’s most polarised nation, a country with the world’s largest oil reserves that is in the grip of one of its worst political, social and economic crises . Heinz Dieterich, ideologue of the “21st century socialism” embraced by the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, has predicted this year will see a “final battle” between opposing camps. The government is trying to “perpetuate its control of the state structure though a preventive institutional Blitzkrieg”, including the court appointments, he wrote in the leftist website Aporrea. Venezuela’s highest court has added to tensions by barring three newly-elected lawmakers from taking their seats, a move dubbed by opposition legislators as a “judicial coup”. Incensed at a ruling that could undermine its “supermajority” and dilute its powers, opposition leaders are calling for a rally of supporters as legislators are inaugurated on January 5.