But the current government is extremely fragile having against them both pro and anti Chavez groups

The problem is not whether the government is fragile or not, is whether Russia will stand for Venezuela at the end. I'm Venezuelan and I can be sure that the government has enough problems right now to be in War or anything like that with USA. Russia would be a better place to stay.

You seriously think the US will start a WAR with Venezuela? On account of Snowden?

The US is not going to go to war with Venezuela. Obama is having enough problems getting a war with Syria going for that to happen.

Thanks. That kind of explains things a little, I did remember Hugo Chavez being quite vocal against the US. But was under the impression that the new government was less vocal in that regard. I guess I'm wrong. And probably Mr. Snowden would be the one to know.

The new government does seem to be less vocal so far. But the person who (narrowly) won the last election was Chavez's preferred successor, so there hasn't been a major change in policies. I think it's still an open question how their policies will developer longer-term.

In March, Maduro accused the US of trying to kill his opponent in the bid for President, right after accusing the US of giving Chávez cancer that led to the seat being empty in the first place.

Some US politicians asked for a recount after the Venezuelan election, as has become customary. There was no recount.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/17/us-venezuela-elect...

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/12/world/americas/venezuela-c...

Please correct yourself. There was a recount, and it ended up showing there was no irregularities. And No, it is not a partisan opinion. Unless you think Jimmy Carter and hundreds of other organizations controlling the vote AND the recount are part of a communist plot.

What recount? I'm Venezuelan, there was no recount.

No matter how many times you repeat a lie, it is still a lie.

There was no recount, at least not one that would be considered acceptable by most standards. If I'm wrong please provide a link.

Would you accept an audit conducted behind closed doors, which for unknown reasons did not include the electoral notebooks uniquely identifying each voter, for an election that had more than 3,200 irregularities[1] including instances of individuals attempting to vote multiple times? I wouldn't, and I'm not sure Jimmy Carter would either.

[1] http://rt.com/news/venezuela-presidential-election-results-8...

The audit was a public act where participated all the parties, with the curious exception of the one who solicited it. It was open to the public, and filmed. People around the world was invited and witnessed it.

The electoral notebooks were audited twice. The first time before the October 2012 elections and the second one before the 2013 elections. In both case, the opposition parties approved the process. Now they are asking for a new audit of the used notebooks, one not supported by the law. They only asked for a new audit to try to keep alive their "protest".

Those 3,200 "irregularities" are anonymous, unsubstantiated, and in many cases patently false reports made in an opposition website. Some examples included "Ms. Mary, a witness from the government party didn't assisted to the process the day of the election", "An electronic machine didn't work". And you have the "grave" accusation like opposition witness expelled of the voting centers at gun point. The only problem is that there's no support for those accusation. No police report, no video, no witness willing to swear before a court of law. Or you have an accusation, like the one made by Capriles in public tv that a voting center had more votes that voters... if you count all the votes in the building but only the voters of one station poll in the building.

These kind of irresponsible denounces will be laughable and those who spread them condemn to the public ridicule if the media would do its job. Instead, they have been keeping repeating the number of (alleged) denounces without spending one second in their substance. For god's sake! The denounces officially presented to the electoral council were a printing of a powerpoint presentation devoid of any actionable piece of information that could be used to investigate them.

What good is the fact that the notebooks were audited before the last elections? The whole point of including them in the audit process is to fully ensure that each vote is valid and tied to a unique individual, not simply verifying whether an anonymous ballot was cast one way or another. The CNE can but doesn't want to include the notebooks, and the excuse is that the law doesn't require them to.

As far as the irregularities, my point wasn't they should all be automatically taken seriously, but certainly it should be within the CNE's interest to try to dispel some of the more plausible accusations such as voters attempting to vote multiple times under different identities.

Well I won't edit my parent comment now because it might make your reply here look strange. But whether there was (or even should have been) a recount was hardly my point. It was just to illustrate that Washington has a history of political disagreement with Caracas, it goes both ways, and the recent elections haven't settled things.

Well, if that is your point, it is indeed a valid one. I would say that there are not disagreements but a growing mismatch in the strategic goals of both countries. The more Venezuela looks for building a diversified economy (thus leaving the role of an oil-only USA-only extra-cheap supplier), the more USA will press Venezuela government to subdue it to do what they want. That has nothing to do with being rightist or leftist, or with human rights, or any of that. It's only about geopolitics and USA goals and needs. But yes, you are right, the recent elections haven't settled things.

* There is customary to make a check of the 54% of the vote stations. This was done the same day of the elections, before publishing the official results. * There is not customary make a "recount" of votes in Venezuela. * Nevertheless, the electoral council accepted a request made by the opposition to check the another 46% of the stations. * The opposition welcomed the new audit... for a few hours. * Then they added a lot of new requests and refused to participate in the audit. * The audit result confirmed the original result.