Publication

This report presents why the U.S. should prepare for the possibility of political unrest surrounding Venezuela's 2012 presidential election. It presents numerous possible scenarios, warning indicators, implications for U.S. interests, and mitigating options. The author writes that the U.S. needs to emphasize publicly as well as privately the importance for the hemisphere of free and fair elections in Venezuela, also encouraging democratic countries in the region to make clear the hemisphere’s concern that democracy be preserved, basic political liberties be respected, including press freedom, and violence be avoided.