Venezuela’s dirty election approaches

WITH THE world’s attention mostly fixed elsewhere, Venezuela, a country of 26 million people with some of the world’s largest oil reserves, is spiralling through a historic crash. According to the International Monetary Fund, economic output is on course to drop 10 percent this year while inflation will exceed 190 percent. Shortages of consumer goods are endemic, and the murder rate, having more than doubled in a decade, is 18 times greater than that of the United States. Many senior military and government figures have been linked to drug trafficking; two nephews of President Nicolás Maduro are being held in New York on cocaine trafficking charges. Foreign governments watching this implosion, and many Venezuelans, have been hoping that a Dec. 6 National Assembly election could provide the beginning of a way out. The country retains a moderate opposition movement that has united into a single ticket. With polls showing it holding a double-digit lead over the ruling party, the opposition believes it should win a legislative majority — and perhaps the supermajority needed to rewrite basic laws. More…