Exit polling in Venezuela shows opposition beating Maduro by wide margin

randon31415 , 1 hour ago

I am hoping for a peaceful transfer of power and Maduro basically going: ya, I won last time very closely and lost this time. Next time a new socialist government might win. That is how democracy works - just America gets all bent out of shape when the group they like looses and calls it rigged. (And then sends a boat full of paintball-gun armed men to assainate the president)

Of course I am already hearing things about the military stealing voting boxes and fighting in the streets, and Maduro has a history of arresting his critics and authoritarianism.

Neither Capitalism nor Communism are bad - discatoriship, suppressing free expression, and authoritarianism should be the enemy: whether it is from Maduro’s socialist thugs, Iran’s mortality police, or Trump’s “ya won’t ever have to vote again if I get back into power” Maga insurrectionists.

ryan213 , 4 hours ago

Is that good for the Venezuelans?

SeaJ , 4 hours ago

He’s closer to being a centrist and also worked for the Chávez government. He would almost certainly be much better an Maduro.

BombOmOm , 4 hours ago (edited 4 hours ago)

Do you know his views on working with the west on oil sales?

Biden started lifting sanctions on Venezuela, but then Venezuela stated they were invading/annexing Guyana’s oil fields, so, that sanction removal idea died.

Edit: the dumb part is Venezuela doesn’t seem to have a way to actually accomplish that goal. Yet they were willing to trash their oil sales (their primary export) over the idea.

rhythmisaprancer , 4 hours ago

It's such an unfortunate situation. Why go after another country? Maybe Maduro is watching USA, or maybe USA spent too much time messing with Venezuela.

ZapBeebz_ , 1 hour ago

Could be as simple as the old “no leader is as popular as a war time leader” but.

See also: Argentina and the Falkland Islands. Every so often, an Argentinian leader starts rattling his sabre over the Falklands to drum up support at home, despite the islands population being overwhelmingly in favor of staying British.

partial_accumen , 2 hours ago

Really extra stupid on Venezuela because their oil reserves are low quality heavy sour crude (meaning the less desirable high sulfur content kind) requiring special refining to get the most out of it. Refining capacity Venezuela doesn’t have. To put it in perspective, the entire nation’s oil refining capacity is lower than a single, albeit large, refinery in the USA>