What next for Venezuela?

[Judi Lynn]

December 09, 2015, 07:00 am
What next for Venezuela?
By Mark Weisbrot, contributor

Venezuela's opposition has won a large majority of the country's legislature, or National Assembly, for the first time in 16 years. Many observers in Washington see this as a tipping point for Venezuelan politics.

What are we to make of this development? First, an endless stream of news articles, newspaper editorials and proclamations — such as from the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS) — denouncing the Venezuelan electoral process and insisting on "credible" election monitors (by which they meant OAS monitors beholden to Washington) were wrong. Quoting out-of-context remarks from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and adding other misleading statements, inaccuracies about "gerrymandering," and more, they created a fear that the government would not accept the results if it lost.

But less than seven hours after the polls closed, the results were announced, and the president accepted them without qualification or hesitation, and with a certain pride — which many Venezuelans share — that their highly secure, safeguarded system worked. Maduro had also signed a pledge prior to the election to respect the results, and requested — unsuccessfully — for the opposition to do the same, as had often happened in the past.
The opposition got their message out and their voters to the polls, which is not surprising, given the state of the economy and the resources of the opposition. They still have most of the wealth and income of the country, they get millions of dollars from the U.S. government and they receive a lot of media coverage, too. Data from the Carter Center for the 2013 presidential election, for example, show that the opposition candidate got more TV coverage than the government candidate, and more of that coverage was favorable. They also have a huge advantage in social media. It is difficult to argue it both ways: that Venezuela does not have free or fair elections, voters are intimidated, etc., and then explain a landslide opposition victory like this one.

More:
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/international/262581-what-next-for-venezuela

[Bacchus4.0]

1. Here is some of Weisbrot's prescient pre-election analysis

But there is something even more sinister going on here. While the Venezuelan opposition is leading in national polls, it very likely will not do as well in winning Assembly seats as these polls would indicate. That is mainly because Venezuela’s single-chamber legislature gives more than proportional representation to smaller states. It is not so disproportional as in the U.S. or Brazilian system, with their separate Senate chambers, but it is significant. Also, the governing party (PSUV) has millions of members and a record of getting their voters to the polls, while the opposition has nothing comparable.

http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/brazil-should-stand-firm-against-u-s-led-campaign-to-undermine-venezuelan-elections


Conclusion of Weisbrot group pre-election analysis paper:

Thus, within a certain range of outcomes, disproportional representation of smaller states and a unified pro-government coalition will continue to favor pro-government parties in the National Assembly.

http://cepr.net/documents/Venezuela-elections-2015-12.pdf

[COLGATE4]

2. Now he's demanding that

new government better hurry up and fix all of Venezuela's problems, chop chop. Funny how he forgets to mention where all those problems came from?

[Marksman_91]

3. You mean Weisbrot was wrong about his assesment AGAIN? Color me SHOCKED!

Man, this guy's just embarrassing himself more and more every time he talks about Chavismo. He always predicts it's gonna go one way, and then ends up going the totally opposite way. Wonder how big the paycheck he gets from Chavista sympathizers is.