Exit polling released after voting centers began to close Sunday evening showed opposition candidate Edmundo González taking 65 percent of the vote, more than doubling Maduro’s 31 percent, Edison Research reported. Venezuelans were waiting for official results.
Do you know his views on working with the west on oil sales?
Biden started lifting sanctions on Venezuela, but then Venezuela stated they were invading/annexing Guyana’s oil fields, so, that sanction removal idea died.
Edit: the dumb part is Venezuela doesn’t seem to have a way to actually accomplish that goal. Yet they were willing to trash their oil sales (their primary export) over the idea.
It’s such an unfortunate situation. Why go after another country? Maybe Maduro is watching USA, or maybe USA spent too much time messing with Venezuela.
Could be as simple as the old “no leader is as popular as a war time leader” but.
See also: Argentina and the Falkland Islands. Every so often, an Argentinian leader starts rattling his sabre over the Falklands to drum up support at home, despite the islands population being overwhelmingly in favor of staying British.
Really extra stupid on Venezuela because their oil reserves are low quality heavy sour crude (meaning the less desirable high sulfur content kind) requiring special refining to get the most out of it. Refining capacity Venezuela doesn’t have. To put it in perspective, the entire nation’s oil refining capacity is lower than a single, albeit large, refinery in the USA>