Venezuelan Elections Sometime This Year

The Maduro administration has finally announced there will be legislative elections later this year, though in typical fashion it is not quite sure when. Here is a pretty testy announcement from the state news agency. This comes after the Brazilian foreign minister publicly said he pushed the government to do so.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said he met with Venezuelan government officials this week and told them a date must be set quickly for the National Assembly election that is meant to be held before the end of the year. 

"I insisted that elections should be called as soon as possible and held within the legal time frame," Vieira said at a news conference.

As a result, rightly or wrongly this announcement is being framed as the direct result of that pressure.

I feel like over the past six months or so we're seeing more small cracks in Latin America with regard to Venezuela, a sense of losing patience. Latin American leftists in Uruguay and Chile have made critical remarks. I wouldn't make too much of this, but public statements from prominent politicians are not insignificant.

Update: even Ernesto Samper is delicately saying that Venezuela needs to fix the date ASAP.