Will Venezuela have free elections in 2024?
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resolved Jul 31
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NO

America is expected to announce a deal where they lift sanctions and in exchange, they allow free elections.

If the opposition is elected, this market resolves to YES.

If the international consensus of observers, including the Organization of American States, as described by the mainstream media (The Economist, NYT...) say they consider the election was fair and nonetheless socialism won, this market resolves to YES.

Otherwise this market resolves to NO.

I won't bet. This market will require judgment.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-venezuela-announce-oil-sanctions-deal-tuesday-report-2023-10-16/

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Feel free to downvote this market, but I am resolving it to NO.

The OAS just called the election rigged. One could argue that all that matters is to have ONE free election this year, this means, if the dictator gets to the negotiation table and they host another election later this year, this market would resolve to YES. But the description clearly has some markers saying we are talking about the regular presidential election.

You are making the right call.

I assume a second election in 2024 doesn't count?

I would wait a decent bit for the dust to settle. I think there are obviously claims of voting irregularities and transparency problems and such, but I'd wait to see if there's any convincing evidence in the press that the elections were fundamentally unfree. (I believe it's likely but definitely not guaranteed at this point!)

I'm not sure what would be convincing to you, but...

Precinct level data wasn't published. The electoral commission called Maduro's 7-point "lead" irreversible when there were still 20% of votes left to "count".

The entire history of elections in Venezuela since 1999 is dubious to say the least; given what we're seeing now, I think the benefit of the doubt they deserve is really tiny.

I'll wait a couple of days, perhaps Brasília is able to bend Maduro, but my instinct is to resolve this NO.

There's neither the will nor the capability to do that in Brasília.

That comment was previous to Lula saying he supported Maduro. Some in the Lula's cucks community were arguing the silence was ambiguity so they could negotiate a deal.

reposted

Maduro will definitely try to rig the election, but it’ll be extremely hard and obvious to everyone, as the opposition is leading by 30-50% in polls. My best bet is that he’ll reject the results and declare martial law/state of emergency, and perhaps invade Guyana to distract the people.

Countries that are permanently in a state of exception don't need to declare a state of exception.

Elections are on Sunday! President Alberto Fernandez was uninvited to attend. And after disrespecting Brazil's Electoral Court, Brazil electoral court is no longer attending. But I still expect many impartial parties to attend, including the OAS.

What happens if the run-up to the election is dirty business as usual, but on the actual day of the election the ruling party does not do any shenanigans so the observers say it was clean?

@BrunoParga if observers say it was clean, this market resolves to YES.

Ecuador election was clean, despite the incredible violence there

@MP So the government can assassinate candidates and it's still a free election?

@nikki the government can't assassinate candidates. But it's an infortunate that people are fragile and they die against a bullet. This happens often in modern democracies. See: Robert F. Kennedy 1968 assassination, George Wallace's 1972 murder attempt, or Roosevelt 1912 murder attempt.