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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   912 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 1, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Venezuela

I’ve covered in previous months the negotiations between the United States and Venezuela to lift American sanctions in exchange for the Maduro Administration allowing free and fair elections. Key to this agreement was lifting the ban on opposition leader Maria Machado from running for President (she would be Maduro’s opponent in a general election). Well, Venezuela’s Supreme Court has officially ruled that not only can she not run in this election, she can’t run anytime in the next fifteen years either.

The Maduro Admin may or may not have been serious about the deal initially, but they likely believe they can’t permit her to run or she could actually unseat the Socialist Party. Maduro’s popularity ratings are bad enough that even he’s talking about stepping aside (for a hand picked successor candidate). Either way, this was definitely an end you can see coming. Venezuela was supposed to lift their ban two months ago and hadn’t budged, and they’ve been extra frisky with anti-opposition stuff lately:

The pressure has increased in recent days. Ms. Machado said that her campaign headquarters had been vandalized and that three of her campaign officials had been arrested.

The United States on Tuesday said it was “deeply concerned” by arrest orders and detentions against at least 33 Venezuelans, including opposition members, journalists and former members of the military, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.

The Biden Administration has threatened that oil and gas sanctions will be fully restored if course is not reversed, and has already restored sanctions on the state owned mining company.

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