VENEZUELA will bring presidential elections forward to April, the national constitutional assembly has decided.
President Nicolas Maduro’s term does not end till the beginning of next year but Diosdado Cabello, chair of the United Socialist Party (PSUV), has thrown down the gauntlet to the opposition as a sign of the government’s confidence following impressive gains in municipal elections last month.
“If the world wants to apply sanctions to us, we will apply elections,” he declared a day after the European Union aped Donald Trump’s White House in slapping sanctions on senior Venezuelan officials.
International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE



