I'm John Batscher with Joseph Muamire and Ernest Arrujo Joseph.

The headline in Reuters, barred Venezuela candidates can take cases to tribunal partially meeting

US demands.

Opposition candidates barred from public office in Venezuela will be able to appear before

the court's top tribunal which will

rule on their bans. The government's government, the country's government and

opposition said in a joint statement last week. This is Ms Machado who won the primary to run for the presidency.

My understanding is that Washington has made her candidacy the bottom line for sanctions relief. Has that changed Joseph?

No, that's somewhat say the same. My understanding is that they are suspending any

additional easening sanctions, but the sanctions

that have already been softened in the weeks and months prior, I think there's going to remain.

Look, let's kind of get to the heart of why this is kind of a bad move beyond all the obvious things of, you know, perverse incentives towards an authoritarian regime.

But fundamentally, there's abundance of empirical evidence that show that the Maduro regime uses elections just to prolong its pursuit of power.

And in this case, it's not just a national power,

because they have that already.

It's regional power, and they're going after their neighbors.

And so these elections are really like a dog and pony show that the Madur regime used as an

distraction. In this case, they also used it to help pump up the referendum that they wanted

to get passed before the Venezuelan population and the easing of sanctions in exchange for

elections is really like a deal that only allows Maduro to extend to get

benefits on both end to extend the the period of the conversation of elections, to be able to pursue other more geopolitical objectives, and at the same time have more money to do so because the sanctions are lifted. Not to mention that this you know there is a

component related to oil on all this with Guyana we mentioned in the last segment that the

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