Venezuela Election
By 
Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, was declared the winner of the country’s tumultuous presidential election early Monday, despite enormous momentum from an opposition movement that had been convinced this was the year it would oust Mr. Maduro’s socialist-inspired party.
The vote was riddled with irregularities, and citizens were angrily protesting the government’s actions at voting centers even as the results were announced.
With 80 percent of voting stations counted, the country’s election authority claimed that Mr. Maduro had received 51.2 percent of the vote, while the main opposition candidate, Edmundo González, had received 44.2 percent.
Mr. Maduro’s government has invented election results before, and this tally was immediately called into question by the opposition and by several officials in the region.
Crashing the economy, pushing out up to 20% of the population, threatening war against a smaller neighbor… but it’s all terrific because something something anti-colonialism. There was a time at LGM when it wasn’t unusual to find folks in comments defending the Chavez/Maduro conception of “democracy,” but fortunately that seems to have passed. FWIW, while the catastrophe of Venezuela has many fathers, Trump administration policy towards Venezuela wasn’t exactly characterized by “restraint;” the aggressive sanctions regime imposed by Trump has failed to dislodge Maduro but has succeeded in making everything worse for everyone.