Venezuela's National Assembly electoral results cannot be called a "Pyrrhic Victory" for the Chavistas

 

Monday, December 14th evening’s Webinar in which I will be presenting an analysis of last Sunday’s National Assembly electoral results in Venezuela. I will attempt to refute the claim of the Venezuelan opposition – even opposition “moderates” like Enrique Ochoa Antich - that with such a high abstention rate, President Maduro’s triumph was a Pyrrhic Victory (or in the words of radical opposition journalist Carlos Acosta from Miami that Maduro is a “loser”). Obviously, support for the Chavista government has declined somewhat. I will argue that the two most important factors are the economic situation due to international sanctions and declining oil prices. Another factor is the natural erosion of support (desgaste) for the Chavistas that is virtually inevitable as a result of such a long period in power (22 years). But a fourth factor cannot be brushed  aside: errors committed under both Chávez and (even more so) Maduro and the failure to act decisively to deal with the problem of corruption. How can this fourth factor be conceptualized?  I will attempt to provide some rough answers to this key question.

https://www.coha.org/webinar-the-national-and-regional-impact-of-parliament