I'm John Baffster with Professor Evan Ellis.

This is a New World Report, and we're going to Venezuela quickly because the election is called for the end of July.

Professor, we just have a couple of minutes.

I don't see any profound change.

The polls, as you've already indicated, favor Gonzales,

the opposition leader, and the do not favor Maduro.

Maduro is aware that if he doesn't go forward with this election he will be

severely sanctioned by the US. What is your measure? We have about a minute. What is your measure? Is he going with this election and then steal it in the in the in the throws the days after? How do we think about this a minute?

It's not yet clear how he's going to react. You know, the fact that he's 42 percentage points

down in the pole may mean that it's too difficult to steal by the usual techniques of making

it difficult for people to get to the polling places or actually

stuffing ballot boxes or maybe even doing things with manipulating the electronic

voting machines.

So it may be that if the if his disadvantages is so big that he could be

moving to something else like a declaring a national a national security emergency

there's some indication that there may be a

increased intention over Guyana or other things

that would allow him to postpone an election

that he knows that he cannot win.

So I think they're probably still looking

to figure out which course they're going to take but I think a course in which they actually allow democratic elections in which they see powers is almost unthinkable at this point given the mid-war past track record.

Professor Abenealous, the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute.

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