Venezuela on the brink — again

[Zorro]

Although President Nicolás Maduro and his cronies in Miraflores Palace have done everything in their power to rig Sunday’s National Assembly elections in Venezuela, all signs point to a huge defeat for the government.

To judge from opinion surveys, the outcome of the vote is foreordained: The opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, leads the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela and its allies by as much as 35 percentage points. Mr. Maduro’s own popularity has been hovering around 20 percent.

The electorate is fed up with rampant crime, a corrupt government and consumer shortages of everything from ketchup to diapers. Even onetime supporters are disgusted by the government’s incompetence. Anywhere else, this would spell the end for a ruling party. But under Mr. Maduro and the late Hugo Chávez, Venezuela long ago became a crypto-dictatorship determined to stay in power at all costs.

Facing long odds, Mr. Maduro’s forces have mounted a campaign of unprecedented ferocity to thwart the opposition.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article47857370.html

[DetlefK]

1. 1. Maduro will win despite the 35%-gap.

2. When the accusations of election-fraud surface, there will be some people here on DU who will denounce them as another plot by the evil US-empire. Maduro would never do that! He is a leftie! And the evil US-empire wants to see him gone, which automatically means that he's a good guy! The US is trying to steal the elections!

[COLGATE4]

2. I am very much afraid that you're right. As Stalin once

explained, "it's not who votes that counts. It's who counts the votes". Maduro has made sure that there is no credible international monitoring of Sunday's vote. Look for a 'surprise outcome' where the Chavistas score a 'come from behind victory'. And all the international complaints will be dismissed here on DU as "overcoming CIA obstructionism", "evil US interference" , etc. etc. Hope I'm wrong.

[joshcryer]

3. If Maduro somehow wins then a lot of people will die.

It'd make the 2012 protests look like a joke. The Venezuelan people are fed up. They will take to the streets in numbers rivaling that of Chavez during his most popular period, and they will be leaderless because Capriles is not one to pull a Lopez. He'll go back to his house and watch the chaos unfold.

You better hope that doesn't happen. We're talking thousands dead before it's over.