Beware of post-election coup in Venezuela

(Photo: Federico Parra AFP/Getty Images)

Judging from Venezuela’s leftist regime’s past behavior, its reaction to a likely defeat in Sunday’s crucial legislative elections may be to stage a slow-motion post-election coup once international attention shifts away from the country in coming weeks.

Except that this time, President Nicolas Maduro may not get away with it as easily as in the past. With a collapsing economy, the world’s highest inflation rate, and a much less friendly international environment, these elections could mark the beginning of the end of one of the most corrupt and inept governments in the region.

Public opinion polls by Datanalisis, Venebarometro and other polling firms that in the past predicted victories by late President Hugo Chávez and Maduro, his successor, agreed that the opposition MUD coalition was about 30 percentage points ahead of the government in the last pre-election polls.

Despite the fact that this was the most anti-democratic election process in South America’s recent history — in addition to the arbitrary imprisonment of leading opposition figures and widespread press controls, the regime’s election rules will allow sparsely populated pro-government states to elect more legislators than huge states with opposition majorities — the opposition was leading in public opinion polls even in heavily “Chavista” states.

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