The Boston bombings have understandably sucked the oxygen out of foreign news coverage. (The mother of one of the victims works at my university. A friend and colleague of mine finished the race shortly before the blasts, but was thankfully already headed home on the T when they happened.) To compensate, in my own small way, I will post a short update about the violent post-election confusion in Venezuela.
Violence broke out after the elections. I cannot say who was responsible, although government supporters seem to be responsible for much. President Maduro has withdrawn his offer to recount the votes; the Supreme Court has now ruled that out. Justice Luisa Morales stated, “In Venezuela the system is absolutely automatic, in such a way that manual recounts don’t exist.”
That is bizarre, since one of the great things about Venezuelan elections is that absolutely the system is set up to allow manual recounts.
Even more bizarrely, the government issued and then suspended arrest warrants for opposition leaders, including Henrique Capriles. In the face of government threats, Capriles wisely called off demonstrations.
I do not think that Venezuela is headed towards civil unrest. I do think that the Maduro government is in the process of destroying its own legitimacy. This will not end explosively, thank the Lord, but it will not end well.
I've been digging all thing Venezuelan (and Algeria, and Colombia, and, and...)
Anyways, this is by far the best policy website for Venezuelan news and analysis.
http://venezuelablog.tumblr.com/
Posted by: shah8 | April 22, 2013 at 01:07 PM