Dilma Rousseff receiving a Hugo Chávez picture from Nicolás Maduro. Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.
On December 6, the new members of Venezuela’s National Assembly will be elected. The country is currently bracing itself for the election, as the results are quite uncertain. What is beyond doubt, though, is the confrontation between the opposition’s “disaster metaphors” and the “perfect victory” trumpeted by the ruling party, one aiming at consolidating the Bolivarian process – which is a revolutionary process too, they insist to say.
If a serious analysis is to be attempted, it should take into consideration data from nearly two dozen previous polls - since the elections of 17 years ago, when Hugo Chávez first became president in February 1999 -, from public opinion surveys, and from analyses of the mobilization capacity of the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (United Socialist Party of Venezuela - PSUV) and the Mesa de Unidad Democrática (Democratic Unity Roundtable - MUD).
