VENEZUELA
Force and Change
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro learned politics under Hugo Chavez, the socialist firebrand who served as the South American country’s leader from 1999 until his death in 2013. Chavez was democratically elected, but Canada’s Globe and Mail described him as an authoritarian who brooked little dissent in the media, the courts or elsewhere.
Today, as Maduro faces re-election on Sunday, Chavez’s legacy lives on.
It turns out Maduro has a good chance of winning a second term, but not because of his policies.
The Venezuelan economy is a mess. Famine stalks the nation – a needless tragedy in a resource-rich country. Last year, Maduro abolished the opposition-led Congress with the blessing of his allies on the Supreme Court, but reversed his decision after civil unrest exploded in response to his brazen move to consolidate power. Three-million Venezuelans have emigrated rather than live under a strongman who rules a collapsing country.
“It’s a story of epic mismanagement,” said John Oliver accuratelyon his weekly HBO news-satire show.
Maduro is competitive in an election where he should lose in a landslide for two reasons.
First, he’s rigged the electoral system, argued Washington Post opinion writer Francisco Toro. “Virtually everyone expects him to ‘win’ on Sunday through a combination of vote buying, coercion, blackmail and ballot-stuffing,” Toro wrote.
Second, because the system is rigged, opposition parties are boycotting the election, Reuters reported.
The news agency quoted college student Ana Romano, who saw campaign workers in Maduro’s Socialist Party “assisting” voters in polling booths – allegedly a form of voter intimidation – and Socialist government officials keeping polling places open long after closing time to help their party’s get-out-the-vote efforts.
“I don’t want to have anything to do with this upcoming election,” Romano said.
As a result, Maduro’s main rival, former solider and provincial governor Henri Falcón – also a former Chavez devotee – is working hard to court his own supporters as well as those of Maduro and other candidates. Falcón’s pitch is hopeful: The system is corrupt, but the people will prevail.
“If an avalanche of votes is produced it could swamp any electoral condition,” Vicente Díaz, a government opponent, told the Wall Street Journal.
Amherst College professor Javier Corrales agreed in a New York Times op-ed. “By failing to vote, the opposition will waste the only chance in years to break this dictatorship,” he wrote.
Still, anticipating the worst, the US is already preparing new sanctions on Venezuela’s crucial oil industry, said CNBC. Those would be on top of sanctions that Presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama already imposed on the country.
New sanctions may or may not hurt the already hurting Venezuelan people. They would certainly exert even more pressure to force change.
At what cost, is an open question.
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