Venezuelans went to the polls to elect their president on Sunday, but there are fears that because of his waning influence, incumbent President Nicolás Maduro, a communist strongman who has ruled the South American country as the head of the Socialist Party since 2013, might seek to keep his grip on power through election fraud.
via the Wall Street Journal:
Under his rule, the economy contracted 80% in a decade and nearly eight million Venezuelans fled into exile. The U.S. leveled sanctions that helped further hobble an oil industry long in decline. The U.S. has also sanctioned or indicted Maduro and other regime officials for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to corruption and rights abuses.
The hard realities in Venezuela have energized a once-fractious opposition on streets like Contreras’s, where modest homes and shanties of cinder block and tin jut out of a cliff like…
