Opposition supporter holding a placard that reads “No more dictatorship” during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government in Caracas, Venezuela March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins
Miami Herald: Latin American leaders ask, “Has Venezuela’s opposition lost its voice?”
SANTIAGO, Chile — When I sat down with Chilean President Sebastián Piñera last weekend, he talked extensively about the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, and expressed frustration over the paralysis of Venezuela’s democratic opposition.
He’ s not alone.
Piñera was talking only on behalf of Chile, but I have heard the same complaint in recent interviews with several other Latin American presidents. They say that while stronger international diplomatic pressures against Venezuela’s dictatorship are necessary, they will not be effective unless accompanied by street protests and an increasingly united and vocal democratic opposition.
Some wonder: Has the Venezuelan opposition given up?
Read more ....
WNU editor: Normal "democratic" rules for a situation like Venezuela no longer holds. The media is controlled. Social media just as much. And opposition leaders are either dead, in jail, under house arrest, or in exile. That is why talk like this is premature .... Planning for Post-Maduro Venezuela (Andrés Velasco, Project Syndicate).
On a side note .... with no effective opposition coupled with years of government propaganda, most Venezuelans are not even blaming the government ....
.... The poll, by the Andres Bello University and the Ratio UCAB polling firm, says that while the Maduro regime has an approval rating of only 32 percent, about 54 percent of Venezuelans believe the regime’s narrative that the country’s hyper-inflation and food shortages are because business tycoons and merchants are hoarding products to enrich themselves.
Amazingly, only 20 percent of Venezuelans recognize the real reason behind the country’s food shortages: disastrous economic policies that prevent the private sector from selling almost anything, because, among other things, production costs are higher than price limits set by the government.
You get the government that you deserve, and in Venezuela's case, they have it, and in spades.
