And Maduro is declared the winner.
https://abc7.com/post/venezuela-elections-president-nicols-maduro-declared-winner-bid/15113611/
Is that good for the Venezuelans?
He's closer to being a centrist and also worked for the Chávez government. He would almost certainly be much better an Maduro.
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.
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.
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.
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>
Isn't the opposition conservative? If so, doubt it will be good for the people. I don't know too much about the politics of Venezuela specifically, but I've never seen a conservative government benefit anyone but the rich long term.
The party and the candidate do not seem to be conservative.
In recent posts about Venezuela, I've noticed that anyone to the right of Pol Pot is considered conservative.
They are opposing a fake ass "socialist" tyrant so I guess they could be considered conservative in that way?
I mean, they seem to be for open markets and pro-Zionist, also more for Christians than indigenous, and against Chavez, who helped a lot of the poor in Venezuela. So far, she's looking pretty conservative but I'm learning as I go along.
Quote from María Corina Machado (opposition leader kept off ballot) per CNN:
We definitely need to open markets in order to take advantage of that huge potential and turn Venezuela into truly the energy hub of the Americas.
How the how the country will benefit from that? We will have fiscal flows, and other resources, mechanisms through which the state will get taxes.
She seems to like money.
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.
Capitalism is pretty bad if it's not tamed with good regulation.
Capitalism, as in, the ones with the money own all the things and make more money with the money they already have, is pretty fucking terrible.
That's what we have now, that's why governments are corrupted and powerless against the financial interests of the few in the face of ecologic disaster. That's why we must constantly justify our right to exist by selling out our lifetime for cheap, so we may afford food and shelter for yet another day; why everything gets commodified and turned to shit. Why people go hungry in the face of plenty, why we have homeless and empty homes, why we are in constant wars of greed.
Capitalism is a failed concept, old and long overcome systems of hierarchy and oppression translated to the modern world. Back then it was emperors and kings, now we have global corporations and billionaires who wield more money and power than most lords of old.
Now after that sermon, capitalism is defined through the capitalist class, the private owners of the land, resources, and means of production who have ceased providing value to the system and economy, and exist only off the gains made by their possessions and investments. This is the systemic flaw (by design): wealth and possessions, and with that also power, accumulate in fewer and fewer hands, even over generations through inheritance.
Now not having this class in the economic system would alleviate most issues with a market based economy, which today we know synonymously as capitalism, and could be achieved in various ways, even without a move towards a planned economy such as communism.
One example I like to cite on these matters is the Freiwirtschaft:
Exit polls aren't legal in Venezuela so idk how many people are gonng be responding to them.
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