A recent poll suggests Venezuelans think they have little real political choice between their two mainstream political parties. The governing party is the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. The main opposition is led by Juan Guaidó, who is recognised as the legal President, but cannot take office because past President Maduro has the support of the armed forces, and refuses to concede he lost the election.

Guaido is a former member of the Popular Will Party, which was a certified member of the global communist group Socialist International. New Zealanders who are informed might recall that their PM Jacinda Ardern was the leader of the youth wing of this group, the International Union of Socialist Youth. (Various other members of the governing NZ Labour party were also long time members of IUSY, including Chris Hipkins, the Minister of Education)

A survey published this week asked Venezuelans- “Do you believe that the opposition political parties and the PSUV are very different or the same?”. 75% of citizens answered “the same,” 9% said they didn’t know and the remainder said they were different.

In response to the question, “Do you think that socialism produces misery, ignorance, and backwardness in countries?” 77.4 % of people said “yes.”

Venezuelans have learnt a hard lesson, and will be paying the price for allowing their country to fall into totalitarian socialism for a long long time. Its a terrible shame, but it appears New Zealanders are intent on following the same path.