There has been a lot of excitement among critics of Venezuela’s authoritarian populist government about new reports confirming that US authorities are investigating Venezuela’s No 2 official on drug trafficking charges, but — unfortunately — the news will have very little political impact in that country.
The May 18 report in The Wall Street Journal, which is based on more than a dozen sources and confirmed previous articles by Spain’s daily ABC that US federal prosecutors are building a drug trafficking case against the president of Venezuela’s Congress, Diosdado Cabello, and other top government officials, will not further discredit the Venezuelan government at home, several well-known Venezuelan pollsters told me.
“Whether it’s true or not, this story has been heard many times in Venezuela,” says Luis Vicente Leon, head of the Caracas-based Datanalisis polling firm. “It may have an impact among the elites, but the people on the street can’t tell the difference between The Wall Street Journal and
