Venzuela votes today

Maduro and his predecessor were leaders of a Venezuelan Socialist party. Have seen their regime described as such in the past.

Regimes can be charitably described as deceptive in their language. The number of countries that have "Democratic" in their official names that are anything but..

Hopefully have a change in the political leadership in Venezuela. Would probably be beneficial to the country and the region. Wouldn't hold my breath all the same.

I think the support has pretty much dried up. The Corbyn era Labour Party had some members that were somewhat warm. Think the apex was under the Chavez when the likes of actors and mainstream parties lauding his accomplishments. Part of the later period support was more about opposing the American hegemony than supporting the Venezuelan government.

Socialism always ends the same way, dictatorship. Some don't want to live in equal poverty with the masses.

In fairness to Kennedy, that was largely an inherited scheme from the Eisenhower administration. He made the decision to not supply direct US military air support. To some that was to result in the failure of the operation, others argue that it helped the reduce the bloodshed. Vietnam and his level involvement would be a more contentious issue.

As regards Socialism, it brings up the economic and political aspects. On the political side, some may feel that free and fair elections are a necessary attribute (possibly yourself?). If one is looking at the economics side, quite a few authoritarian and despotic regimes would operate a Socialist system.

The USSR was socialist. China is socialist. Cambodia was socialist.

That's the end of the socialist spectrum Venezuela exists on, not the left wing party in a democratic country model you're outlining.

Labour being in government in the United Kingdom now doesn't mean it's become a socialist society, it's just socialist flavoured capitalism without any commitment to the harsh realities of actual socialism.

The term USSR stands for Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.

I'm not trying to be unkind here, but your understanding of the political ideology you claim to subscribe to doesn't seem particularly robust.

They were socialists.

You're choosing to say that words can mean whatever YOU want them to mean.

Communism is the end result of Socialism according to all the socialists I've ever spoken to. Communism was never achieved because socialism failed they'll tell you.

If you lived through the cold war I'd have to assume it wasn't at the forefront of your attention.

I'm not trying to be condescending or rude here but you've got a lot of things back to front on this topic unfortunately.

Two posts ago you said China was a Fascist state, now you're saying it's Communist. Communism and Fascism are at the opposite ends of the political spectrum, even of they do result in bad outcomes (see the notion of horseshoe theory for more on that one), they're not the same thing.

Surprised that someone has not heard the word socialist in the context of the Venuzuela regime.

They are routinely called socialist by the likes of the BBC, Irish Times, UK Independent etc.

BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48121148

Their socialist PSUV party has, over the past two decades, gained control of key institutions, including much of the judiciary, the electoral council and the Supreme Court.

Irish Times: https://www.irishtimes.com/world/americas/2023/03/17/deep-fake-news-videos-ramp-up-misinformation-in-venezuela/

The report, which was widely circulated in media supportive of President Nicolás Maduro’s socialist government, suggested claims about widespread impoverishment in oil-rich Venezuela had been “exaggerated”.

UK Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/world/venezuela-election-maduro-controversy-gonzalez-b2587183.html

Venezuela is voting in the country’s hotly-anticipated election today (28 July), which could see the end of 25 years of socialist rule.

Wikipedia describes the ideology of the ruling party as:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Socialist_Party_of_Venezuela

Ideology	Socialism of the 21st century[2] Bolivarianism[3] Chavismo[4] Left-wing populism[5] Anti-imperialist

Probably hundreds of other sources.

Depends on your definition of socialism I suppose but certainly the idea that the Venezuelan regime is socialist is not a fringe one.

Might you be thinking more of social democracy than socialism?

Looking less like socialism and more like a dictatorship in Venezuela.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz5rj2mzgevo

They use an electronic voting system in Venezuela. Maduro has called the results based on an electronic tally that in itself can't be trusted. He could have pulled the figures out of his proverbial backside. They are also witholding access to many of the paper receipts which could be used to verify the results. Even then, the trouble with these systems is while in theory you should be able to verify by auditing only a random sample of paper receipts, but if Maduro's cronies get to select which ones to audit, then fraud could be occurring elsewhere.

Good breakdown on election process here

https://x.com/FiorellaIsabelM/status/1817666249721008574 one commentor says it's more secure than in the USA.

Im sure their elections are a model for the rest of us…..

Do you have a source that says contrary?

Blinken has concerns , and the CIA would know all about rigging elections ;-)

its not my suggestion but is is a basket case economy and the leader wins another terms, seems legit?

and from wiki, case closed

 "More recently, Reporters Without Borders ranked Venezuela 159th out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index 2023 and classified Venezuela's freedom of information in the "very difficult situation" level."

I should not need to, the playbook is well known, but here you go, while he was in power. https://web.archive.org/web/20240729201553/https%3A//www.nytimes.com/1971/01/28/archives/chiles-peasants-get-aid-in-seizing-farms.html

Last month, Dr. Allende granted a pardon to a group of leaders of this group who were in jail for bank robberies and other violent acts during the earlier Government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva, a Christian Democrat. Sergio Zorrilla, one of the pardoned leaders, said this week that his organization took credit for what he called the revolutionary peasant movement, which organized the Mapuche and other seizures.

Same playbook ran out in Venezuela and Zimbabwe leading to mass poverty and starvation. You must be part of the nomenklatura, to benefit from socialism, after all some are more equal than others. The demand for utter conformity is something that socialists try to explain away. In order to create their promised utopias, once in government they ultimately would have to respond to the normal resistance that comes when authorities are heavy-handed and when they try to expropriate one’s property and use it for political purposes. The military junta in Chile did not appear out of the blue, they responded in kind to put down an equally vicious gang of thugs.

You tell me. How was that resolved in the end, plus the trade war caused by the defaults. Ultimately a combination of economic migration across the British empire and United States (What happened to the whiteboys in the end). Combine that with the first world war that killed off the land owning aristocracy's heirs and debt defaults in the 1930s. In the end it was resolved relatively peacefully, the socialist thugs in Chile took whatever they wanted with no compensation offered, it should come as no surprise that people resent having their property stolen and would fight back where they can. In Venezuela the only choice is migrate or scam the system for what you can get.