Is This the End of Chávez’s Venezuela?

Karin Salanova knows that when Venezuelans head to the polls on Sunday to elect a new National Assembly, the cards will be stacked against her. But Salanova, a 40-year-old lawyer running as the opposition’s candidate for the third circuit in the central industrial state of Aragua, is optimistic about her chances in spite of the overwhelming advantages enjoyed by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). “It’s not a fair contest,” Salanova said in an interview. “The government is pulling out all of the stops to maintain control of the assembly.”

Venezuelans go to the polls against the backdrop of a faltering economy (which could contract as much as 10 percent this year), soaring crime, a U.S.-led corruption investigation into the state oil company, and the recent arrest of the first lady’s nephews on drug smuggling charges. The election has also become a referendum as to whether Venezuela will continue adhering to Chavismo, the political and economic movement founded by late President Hugo Chávez, who launched the country’s socialist revolution. It could even be the first step to ousting Maduro.

Facing a political insurgency that threatens to break its hold on power, the PSUV is, according to Salanova, using every trick in the book: The party is allegedly using public funds to bankroll its campaign, deploying ambulances and public vehicles to distribute PSUV literature, handing out food and scarce goods in poor neighborhoods to curry votes, and broadcasting pro-PSUV cadenas nacionales — programming that all television and radio stations are required by law to run — almost nonstop while the opposition struggles to get any media exposure at all. Government-run television stations have ignored opposition candidates, and the government has cut back paper supplies to newspapers that support those running against the PSUV. As a result, many opposition candidates have relied almost entirely on social media to get their message out.

Government institutions that are supposed to be autonomous, such as the National Electoral Council (CNE), whose task it is to run fair and clean elections, have repeatedly bent the rules to give the PSUV an unfair advantage, Salanova and her compatriots charge. The council, which is controlled by members of Maduro’s party, has allowed several parties the opposition has decried as fake to run, some incorporating parts of the name of Salanova’s Democratic Unity coalition (known by its Spanish acronym MUD), in an apparent ploy to confuse voters. On top of which, the CNE has made several controversial rulings to further the PSUV’s advantage.

http://news.yahoo.com/end-ch-vez-venezuela-130717648.html