U.S. officials and Latin American leaders
are awaiting Venezuela’s parliamentary elections this weekend with trepidation,
worried that instead of defusing the country’s deep tensions, the vote could
instead detonate a new crisis. With Venezuela’s petroleum-based economy
projected to contract 10 percent this year and citizens suffering chronic
shortages of basic goods, the ruling socialist party is expected to lose
control of the legislature for the first time since the late Hugo Chavez was
elected president in 1998. Such a defeat would be an unprecedented blow to the
movement known as “Chavismo” that rose to power by electoral means yet views
its uninterrupted rule as a part of a “revolution” that dismisses, at least
rhetorically, democratic norms such as alternating power and divided
government. More…
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